Bhubaneswar: Four more persons have been arrested for their involvement in the murder of a senior servitor of Puri’s Jagannath Temple, Krushna Chandra Pratihari, taking the number of persons arrested so far to 10.
The accused persons are Kunmun Suar, Tutu Mahapatra, Hari Panda, and Jagan Khatei. While the first three were present on the murder spot, Jagan was involved in conspiracy and planning for escape routes, informed Puri SP Kanwar Vishal Singh.
After committing the crime, they had escaped on a motorcycle to Satpada forest where they were hiding for two days. From there they escaped to Chilika Lake and stayed for two days and two nights on a boat.
Though 11 teams had been engaged to nab the accused persons, they were able to escape from there when approached by a police team. They were finally nabbed in Koraput while attempting to leave the State.
The accused persons were not using any mobile phones so it was difficult to trace them. However, they were successfully nabbed by applying conventional policing methods and with the support of police of neighbouring districts and States, said Singh.
Meanwhile, police is to recover the weapons of offense and the motorcycle. The four main perpetrators of the crime are to be brought on remand to recreate the crime scene.
The main conspirators Kalia Singhari and Dalagobinda Singhari and other accused persons Kalu alias Satyanarayan Panigrahi, Baba alias Ashis Mahapatra, Muna alias Rashmi Ranjan Patra, and Tulia alias Sandip Jena, had been arrested earlier.
On Monday, SP Singh informed that Kalia and Dalagobinda had paid around Rs 2 lakh to Kalu to prepare the blueprint and arrange logistics for the crime, and plan for escape routes.
Baba is one of the four persons who were present on the murder spot. Muna had supplied the arms for committing the crime and Sandip was involved in conspiracy and planning for escape routes.
