Bhubaneswar: In a relief to former Odisha minister Raghunandan Das, the Orissa High Court granted him anticipatory bail in a case lodged by a woman journalist accusing him of threatening to unleash dogs on her last month.

The court ordered the BJD leader to surrender before a lower court to get anticipatory bail in the case.

Raghunandan Das, who was the Information & Public Relations Minister during former Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's government, is accused of threatening a woman journalist of a private news channel to unleash his dogs on her while she was covering a story at his official residence in Bhubaneswar on June 25.

He had moved the High Court to evade arrest after the police launched an investigation in the matter.

According to reports, the former minister threatened a woman journalist of releasing his two dogs when she entered his residence with his permission to capture some visuals of the demolition of construction in neighbouring premises belonging to BJD's former organisational secretary Pranab Prakash Das.

A complaint in this regard was filed by the woman journalist at the Capital Police Station in Bhubaneswar. On basis of the complaint, the police booked the former Baikuda-Erasama MLA under Sections 354, 323, 294 and 506 of the IPC and initiated probe into the incident.