Cuttack, April 6: Police today arrested Chhabindra Lenka, 32, a prime accused in the 2013 double murder case at Baranga.

Though Baranga police had earlier arrested six persons in connection with the case, Lenka had been on the run for the past two years.

Chhabindra was involved in killing two persons, Prashant Nayak and Deba Mohanty, on June 16, 2013. The gangsters had fired indiscriminately at Prashant Nayak, a contractor, over dispute over supply of materials to a brick kiln at Belgachhia village. A passerby, Deba Mohanty, too, had suffered bullet injuries and later died at a hospital.

Nayak was returning from a local beetle shop when the goons attacked him. Three bullets had hit Nayak, who died on the spot.

Deputy commissioner of police Sanjeev Arora said: "The prime accused, Chhabindra Lenka, worked for gangster Tapu alias Prashant Das and was involved in a series of extortion and tender-fixing cases."

Choudwar police nabbed Lenka while they were probing a loot of Rs 85,000 from the employees of Saraswat petrol pump at Daulatabad near the National Highway No. 55.

Two other associates of Lenka, Prashant Bhoi, 29, and Krushna Nath, 22, of Jagatsinghpur and Khurda are also arrested in connection with the loot incident. One 9mm mauser, four live bullets and one motorcycle have been recovered from their possession. The weapon seized from the criminals was procured from gangster Tapu.

The police said all the three accused had robbed the employees of Saraswat petrol pump of cash on February 22. The gang members had used substantial amount of the looted money to purchase illegal arms and ammunition through a dealer, who was yet to deliver the weapon.

"All the three criminals are involved in a number of crimes in the Mancheswar, Capital, Infosys, Oltapur, Niali, Chandrasekharpur and other police station limits," Arora said.

A senior official said efforts were on to trace the arms dealer, who had supplied weapons to other criminals in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.