Barbil: The investigation into the January 19 dacoity at the Barbil branch of the Bank of Maharashtra in Keonjhar district gathered further momentum with the arrest of two more accused from Bihar.
The arrests were made by a special team of Barbil police from the Patna area, the capital of Bihar, and the accused were subsequently brought to Odisha, police informed during a press conference.
The two arrested individuals have been identified as Santosh Kumar Paswan (38) of Asoi village under Bhagwanpur police station in Banasar district, Bihar, and Naveen Kumar Yadav of Bhupatipur village under Ramkrishnapur Nagar police station in Patna district. From their possession, police seized one gold chain, one gold ring, and two smartphones believed to have been stolen during the bank dacoity.
Police revealed that Santosh Kumar Paswan has as many as eight serious criminal cases registered against him across various police stations in Bihar, including charges of theft, robbery, murder, and kidnapping. Naveen Kumar Yadav, meanwhile, has two criminal cases pending against him.
Following their arrest, the police conducted a scene recreation exercise with the accused from Barbil Bata Square to Bangla Square to reconstruct the sequence of events related to the crime. Both were later forwarded to court.
The latest arrests come as part of an ongoing crackdown in the high-profile robbery case. Earlier, on January 24, two accused — Kunal Raj Verma and Raj Kumar Singh — were arrested from Dhanbad in Jharkhand through joint efforts of Odisha and Jharkhand police. During that operation, police recovered 280 grams of gold, two Scorpio vehicles, and four smartphones.
Subsequently, on January 27, the alleged main accomplice in the bank loot, Abhiranjan Kumar, was apprehended and a Pulsar motorcycle was seized. In a dramatic development on February 1, another accused, Sipu Kumar, was captured during a police encounter in the Tankura forest area.
With the latest arrests, the police have tightened the net around the inter-state gang involved in the daring daylight robbery.
Further investigation is underway to ascertain the full extent of the conspiracy and recover the remaining stolen property.
