Keonjhar/Jajpur, Aug. 26: A block development officer was stabbed with a dagger by two persons, including a former employee of his office, at Hatadihi in Keonjhar district today.
The officer, Ananda Chanda Sethy, has suffered deep injuries on his face, hands and head. He is undergoing treatment at the Bhadrak district headquarters hospital.
The two attackers have been identified by police as Debakanta Rout, 39, of Bancho village and Malaya Das, 35, of Podpoda village. They have been taken into custody.
Rout, the main accused, used to work in the office as a data entry operator about five years ago.
“The two attackers barged into the office while the officer was holding a meeting with two panchayati raj department members. Rout allegedly stabbed Sethy repeatedly with the dagger,” said Dipty Ranjan Ray, additional superintendent of police, Keonjhar.
“Rout, a former employee, was suspended for dereliction of duty by the then BDO around five years ago. His repeated appeals to revoke his suspension order were not entertained by successive BDOs, including the present one. We suspect that is why he attacked Sethy,” he said.
Woman gang raped
A 35-year-old married woman, who was waiting at a bus stop, was allegedly gang raped by three youths near Khiro village in Jajpur on yesterday night.
The accused persons offered the victim to ride pillion on their motorcycle to reach her house at Patana village in the neighbouring Keonjhar district and allegedly raped her on the Baitarani riverbank.
The villagers rescued her hearing her screams and caught all the three accused.
The accused, identified as Chakradhar Das, 22, of Mangalpur in Jajpur, Shaik Babu, 23, of Dhamnagar in Bhadrak and Manas Majhi, 25, of Samana village in Keonjhar district, were later handed over to police.
The rape victim, a mother of two children, filed a complaint with Panikoili police yesterday night.
“I was waiting for a bus at the Panikoili bus stand to go to my native village in Keonjhar on yesterday night. Three youths reached the spot and volunteered to take me to my village on their motorcycle. As it was getting dark and I desperately wanted to reach home at the earliest, I accepted their lift and sat on the motorcycle. Instead of going to my village, they took me to a river bank and raped me in turns there,” the victim wrote in the FIR.
“On getting information from the villagers, we rushed to the spot and arrested the three youths late on yesterday night. The victim filed an FIR with us last night. We conducted a medical examination on both the victim and the accused at the district headquarters hospital today,” said J.K. Das, sub-divisional police officer of Jajpur Road.
A case has been registered in this connection and the medical report is awaited.
The accused were produced in the court today and were remanded in judicial custody.