Bhubaneswar: Police have arrested a Plus II student in Odisha’s Khorda district for allegedly killing his close friend for respite from frequent blackmail.
The victim, identified as Ashutosh Mohapatra of Khamar Sahi under Banapur police limits in the district and the arrested accused Ashirbad Pradhan of Dikhitpada village in the same police station limits were good friends since childhood. Both studied Plus II students and resided in nearby villages.
As close friends, Ashirbad used to share his relationships with different girls and his intimate photographs with the girls with Ashutosh. Taking advantage of it, Ashutosh blackmailed his friend threatening to expose him by posting the pictures on social media. Ashirbad gave money to Ashutosh from time to time to keep his mouth shut. However, as Ashutosh’s blackmailing turned to be a frequent affair and the extortion amount increased steadily, Ashirbad wanted to kill his friend.
When Ashutosh was returning home from tuition on the afternoon of January 23, Ashirbad invited him to have a drink. Both went to an under-construction house in an isolated and started drinking alcohol. As Ashutosh got heavily drunk, Ashirbad locked him from outside and left the place.
Ashirbad called up Ashutosh’s father over the phone and said he had kidnapped his son. He demanded Rs 5 lakh release Ashutosh and returned to the place where they were drinking. Later, he killed Ashutosh by strangulating him with a rope and dumping his body in a well at night.
Meanwhile, Ashutosh’s body was recovered from a well at Dikhitpada village under Banapur police limits in Khordha on Wednesday.
“My son was a good student. He left for tuition on January 23 at 2 pm and after that, his mobile phone was switched off,” said, the father of the deceased, Prashant Mohapatra.
Following the ransom call, the family lodged a complaint at the Banapur police station the same evening.
Police tracked the phone number from which the extortion call was made and detained Ashirwad in this connection from Dikhitpada village just four kilometers away. During interrogation, Ashirbad confessed his crime, and the body of the victim was recovered from the well in the backyard of his house on Wednesday.
The police on Friday took Ashirbad Pradhan to the scene of the crime and recreated the heinous crime.
