Bhubaneswar, May 31: Khandagiri police have detained four persons in connection with a murder in Dumduma area on May 28.

The police are also interrogating the wife of the deceased, Dasarathi Behera, suspecting her role in the case. The police have detained Kishore Sahu, an autorickshaw driver, who had taken the room on rent where the murder took place.

On Saturday, two people, including the victim, had accompanied him to his room. He had told the landlady they would stay there for sometime. After he left the room, some other youths came with Kishore’s nephew and killed Dasarathi.

Dasarathi’s body was found lying on the floor of the locked room with his hands and legs tied with a rope. On the same day, the police seized a dagger from that room which was allegedly used in the crime.

The police said they had detained Kishore’s nephew Purnachandra Sahu, a recovery agent for a finance company, who was caught from Talcher, from where the deceased also belonged. The police have also detained Pappu, a criminal from Puri, and Ravi, another aide in this murder. Kishore and Ravi were caught from Nayagarh.

The police had seized a motorcycle from Raghunath Nagar, which was used by the goons to reach the spot and escape after killing Dasarathi. Besides, they have seized an autorickshaw of Kishore.

“The goons left the motorcycle at Ravi’s house and took some money from him to escape from the city. The police seized the vehicle and caught Ravi from Nayagarh,” said a police officer.

The police suspect that Purnachandra and the wife of the deceased Pratima were romantically linked and they even brought her to Bhubaneswar for questioning. Several teams of police have been conducting raids at various places in Bhubaneswar, Puri, Nayagarh and Talcher to find out clues related to the incident.

Dasarathi’s relative Nrusingh Nayak, who lives in Keonjhar, said he had heard about police taking Pratima Behera to capital for questioning.

“We are living far from the place of crime. So we do not know what the police is doing. We hope the police will solve the matter by arresting the criminals as soon as possible,” he said.

Though the police have detained four persons, they are yet to find out the motive behind the crime. “We have been questioning these people and are conducting raids to arrest others who might be involved in the murder. As some hired killers are involved in this case, it is taking time to arrest them,” said a police officer.

Women kills self

Two women committed suicide last evening in the Khandagiri area of the capital by hanging themselves from the ceiling fan of their houses. They were Babita Das (23) and Mamina Behera (25).

According to Babita’s in-laws, she wanted to observe Savitri Osha - a festival women celebrate for good health and long life of their family. However, her husband Kulamani Das told her not to celebrate the festival citing that it was inauspicious as one of their relatives had died recently.

“In the morning, we had a fight over this. But she did not listen to me and was adamant to celebrate the festival. Then I left for work. In the evening, I got a call from my house and heard that she had committed suicide,” said Kulamani.

However, Babita’s family members suspect foul play. They said her in-laws had been torturing her for dowry.

“She had been complaining to us about dowry torture. We thought everything would be all right,” said a family member of Babita. They are, however, yet to lodge a formal complaint with the police.

The police said they had not got any complaint regarding the woman’s death. “We went to the spot after getting the information. On preliminary investigation, we found it to be a case of suicide,” said a police officer. Her body was handed over to the family members after postmortem.

In a similar incident, Mamina hanged herself when her husband Sushant Behera did not go to the market to purchase a sari for Savitri puja.