Odisha Police yet to crack Railway official shooting case

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jun 2:

Three days after three miscreants shot at Joint General Manager (JGM) of Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), Ajay Kumar near Rail Kunj of Bhubaneswar, the Odisha police are yet to nab the culprits.

Though the Commissionerate Police have arrested Subash Agarwal, MD of ARSS Infrastructure, for allegedly issuing the attack order, they are yet to identify the chain of events that led to the firing incident.

While the special squad of Commissionerate Police has taken over the case and two teams have been formed under the overall leadership of Bhubaneswar DCP Satyabrata Bhoi himself; as of now, they have been beating around the bush.

Police suspect the role of the gangsters who usually fix railway tenders in the attack and are trying to find out links with the underworlds of Kendrapara, Cuttack, Rourkela, Jagatsinghpur and inter-state gangs from Jharkhand and Bihar.

DCP Satyabrata Bhoi, however, begs to differ.

“There are no such contract killing gangs in Bhubaneswar. This type of incident never occurred in the past 3-4 years. We are still investigating the case and trying to figure out the culprits behind the attack,” he said.

Another officer, investigating the case, points to local gangster Anil Chhotray who, along with 16 others, was recently released from the jail. The arrested ARSS MD had close relations with him back in 2004. Agarwal, it may be noted, had been arrested after the Prachi division double murder case broke out.

Some other investigating officers suspect local gangsters and are monitoring some young men from Patia, Sri Vihar, Prasanti Vihar and Mancheswar area. These men used to accompany Agarwal whenever he to attended a tender filing.

Another bunch of cops is trying to link the case with Agarwal’s 2013 kidnapping by contractors from Andhra Pradesh.

Without a solid lead, the cops are planning to get Agarwal on remand and question him on his involvement.

On the other hand, the Railway Police Force (RPF) has provided armed security to the JGM Ajay Kumar, who had a narrow escape on the fateful day. Two armed jawans would provide security to him round the clock.

It may be noted that three miscreants shot at Kumar on May 31 while he was returning home. The bullet missed him by a whisker and got stuck in his car seat after getting through his pant.