Top Odisha Maoist leader’s friend fumbles during deposition

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jan 30:

Birabara Behera, a childhood friend of Odisha’s top Maoist leader Sabyasachi Panda who appeared before the Justice AS Naidu commission of inquiry on Thursday, failed to corroborate his earlier statements and provide satisfactory replies to the panel.

Sabyasachi Panda
Sabyasachi Panda

While deposing before the inquiry commission, Behera said the documents related to rice trading, business transactions, records of transactions, registration and other documents are not available with him.

Besides, he said he won’t be able to say about the place where he used to deliver the rice consignments.

Interestingly, he also parried the series of questions pertaining to Sabyasachi’s television interview to select senior journalists claiming he is not being able to recall the events.

The lawyers shot a series of questions at him: Did you watch the television interview of Sabyasachi Panda? Do you remember the outfit he had donned during that interview? What was he holding in his hands? What was his reaction to the questions put to him? What was the duration of the interview? Who all were besides him during the interview? Which television channel booms did you see on the screen? There were some questions Sabyasachi Panda’s childhood friend and his alleged partner in rice trading was asked. However, he did not come up with satisfactory replies to any of them.

On January 8 this year, Birabara Behera, who hails from Mayurjhalia village under Ranpur block in Nayagarh district, while deposing before the one man Commission probing the killing of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, had said, ‘‘I know Sabyasachi Panda since my childhood as we studied in the same school. Later, we went on to do rice trading together. In the last 10-12 years, I have despatched 70-80 rice consignments to him. He was living in village then. He used to supply them to other places. However, I am not in touch with him after his arrest.’’

However, Birabara did not conform to his earlier statements to the Commission.

Special government counsel Bijay Krushna Patnaik and senior lawyer Suresh Pujari cross-examined Birabara Behera.

It may be recalled that Sabyasachi, who was the state secretary of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) then, had told a team of journalists from Bhubaneswar in an interview a few days after the incident that his cadres had killed Saraswati.

A copy of the taped interview was submitted to the inquiry Commission. Following this, the interviewers were summoned to appear before the Commission. All of them had corroborated the version of Sabyasachi. Basing on this, the Commission had served a notice on Sabyasachi to appear before the commission of inquiry.

In the affidavit, Sabyasachi Panda had dismissed the allegations of his involvement in the killing of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati. The half-masked man appearing on the television interview claiming the responsibility of killing Saraswati was not him and the voice heard was not his, he had said in the affidavit.

Meanwhile, the journalists who had interviewed Sabyasachi had been summoned to appear before the Commission again. Senior journalist Sampad Mohapatra has been summoned to appear before the Commission today.

 

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