Bhubaneswar, May 24: Khirod Chandra Mallick, brother of former minister Pramila Mallick, was arrested and sent to jail for allegedly masterminding an acid attack on Amareshwar Mishra, father of a medicine shop salesman, in Shastri Nagar area in November last year.

Mallick, who runs an NGO, was also accused of having attempted to kill Sanjay Mishra, the medicine salesman, in November last year. Unidentified assailants had opened fire on Mishra.

Sanjay Mishra’s wife Kavita and her sister Namita Padhi both were employees of the NGO that Mallick ran.

Mallick had allegedly masterminded an attack on 23-year-old Namita Padhi in Mancheshwar Industrial Area in April. In this case too, the assailants had opened fire at Namita, who was then working with a call centre.

Incidentally, Mallick secured conditional bail from a local court here today in connection with the firing on Namita Padhi. Mallick had earlier got anticipatory bail from the high court on May 15 in the Mancheswar firing case.

Police said Mallick had masterminded all these attacks and had hired goons to carry out the crimes. The victims in all these cases had sustained injuries.

Mallick, founder of a Sambalpur-based NGO, surrendered this afternoon before the sub-divisional judicial magistrate in-charge, Srotaswini Kar, for his regular bail following the instructions of the high court.

As the news of Mallick’s surrender came in, police personnel from Kharavela Nagar police station and Mancheswar police station rushed to court. The cops had been under fire for allegedly trying to protect him for the past year and a half in spite of knowing all about his involvement in these cases.

“My client had been granted bail in the Mancheswar firing case with a security money of Rs 20,000 and two sureties. But the public prosecutor brought the acid attack charge against him. Though it was a bailable case, they pleaded before the court to convert it to attempt to murder. The SDJM has no power to grant bail in attempt to murder cases,” said Dharanidhar Nayak, Mallick’s advocate.

He said his client was not involved in any of these cases. “None of the accused arrested in all these cases had taken his name, but the police were determined to arrest him,” Nayak said.

However, the police said the accused arrested in the Mancheswar firing case had told them about Mallick employing them to eliminate Padhi. “The accused arrested in the earlier cases too had told us about his involvement,” said a senior police officer.

Police officials said the exact reason behind the attack on the Mishra family was not known. “However, we suspect some financial matter to be the cause behind the attacks. Both the Padhi sisters had earlier worked for Mallick’s NGO,” said Priyaranjan Satpathy, the inspector in charge of Mancheswar police station.

Public prosecutor Anjan Samantray said the court rejected Mallick’s bail plea and sent him to Jharapada special jail for 14 days judicial custody.

“The court has been informed about the Shastri Nagar firing incident,” he said.