Bhubaneswar: Taking disciplinary action, Odisha unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday suspended five party members for their alleged involvement in assault on a BMC official in Bhubaneswar. 

The five members included Corporator Aparup Narayan Rout alias Jeevan Rout, Rashi Ranjan Mahapatra, Debasish Pradhan, Sachikant Swain and Sanjeev Mishra. 

Odisha BJP president Manmohan Samal placed them under suspension from the primary membership of the party on allegation of their involvement in attack on BMC Additional Commissioner Ratnakar Sahoo, stated State BJP Media Cell.

Of all five suspended members, while Jeevan Rout, Rashmi Ranjan Mahapatra and Debasish Pradhan have been arrested in connection with the BMC official attack case, BMC Mayor demanded arrest of all accused persons in the incident.  

The on-duty BMC official was allegedly attacked by a group of individuals during a public grievance redressal meeting at BMC office on Monday. 

A video that went viral on social media showed that the official was assaulted physically by a group of people, some of them reportedly from the BJP. They were seen dragging the official out of the office through stairs and acted inhumanly. 

Condemning the act of hooliganism on premises of the BMC office, hundreds of employees of the civic body as well as corporators staged a road blockade, disrupting the vehicular movement for a few hours on busy road in Bhubaneswar yesterday evening.

Based on a complaint lodged by the victim, police yesterday arrested Jeevan, Rashmi Ranjan and Debasish in connection with the assault case.