 |
| Live cartridges that were found at the crime scene |
Sonepur, Sept. 23: Sonepur police today arrested a 24-year old youth in connection with the gruesome murder of Dr Durbadal Mishra, the ex-ADMO at the district headquarters hospital. The doctor was murdered on Monday night and his body was found right outside his residence .
The accused has been identified as Ashok Sahu, (24), of Babupali. Addressing a press conference this evening Sonepur superintendent of police, Sara Sharma said that there were three persons involved in the case. “We have arrested Ashok Sahu while two others are still on the run and we will soon nab them. One of them is Pratyush Panda who is the prime accused,” she said.
The SP attributed the motive of the murder to the alleged negligence of duty on the part of the murdered doctor, which led to the death of a child. “During interrogation we found that Pratyush’s nephew who was barely 8 month old had died due to the alleged negligence on the part of the doctor about a year ago. From that day Pratyush had vowed to take revenge on the doctor”, the SP said.
Sharma said that police have recovered a sharp weapon that was used in the crime from the house of Ashok Sahu and seven live cartridges and a magazine from the house of Pratyush Panda.
She said that after committing the crime, two of the accused men left Sonepur by taking a boat in the Mahanadi while Ashok returned to his village by bike. The accused had planned the murder meticulously.
“On Sunday night when the victim arrived at his residence at about 10pm, they first masked his face so that he could not shout and dragged him to a nearby place. Then they slit his throat with a dagger. They kept some cartridges at the murder spot to mislead the police”, Sharma said.
The accused also took the mobile phone of the victim and that made the job easy for the police. They tracked one of the assailants by following phone signals.
Durbadal Mishra, 51, was found in a pool of blood with his throat slit on Monday night. The doctor, who hailed from Sambalpur, had settled in Sonepur and had just returned from his work.
