Bhubaneswar, Feb. 2: The city police arrested Pradip Palei alias Padia, the main accused in the Sanjay Gouda murder case, last night from Ganjam.

Gouda, a 32-year-old businessman, was hacked to death near his shop on the Canal Road in GGP colony in Mancheswar on January 27. The police have arrested Padia under section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.

The Mancheswar police have also detained five other persons for interrogation in connection with the case.

Deputy commissioner of police (DCP), Himanshu Lal, said enmity was the reason behind the gruesome killing of the trader whose head was chopped off by the assailants.

“On the fatal day when Sanjay was returning from his shop Padia was waiting for him. As the trader approached Padia, the latter beheaded him with a sword. The weapon was recovered by the police from near the spot of occurrence,” said Lal.

The DCP said Padia had several cases against him in the Khalikote police station area in Ganjam district. For past sometime he had been hiding in Bharatpur area on the outskirt of Bhubaneswar to avoid arrest.

Sources said both the families of the deceased and the accused hailed from the same area of Ganjam. Padia, in fact, had been extorting money from Gouda’s relatives who ran a liquor business in Ganjam. A few months ago when Padia’s younger brother tried to collect money from them on his behalf, Sanjay assaulted him. In retaliation, Padia had attacked Sanjay and injured him. He had then been arrested and forwarded to the court. After getting bail in the case, he left for Bhubaneswar as some more cases were pending against him.

During his stay in Bhubaneswar, he along with one of his relatives, Sushant, with whom he used to stay, went to the shop of Sanjay’s elder brother Bijay in Jatani and demanded money from him. However, the local residents attacked both. Padia, however, thought that the attackers were the henchmen of Bijay and began planning revenge against him and Sanjay.

He planned to eliminate Sanjay first since it was easy to find him alone. He beheaded Sanjay when he was returning home on the fateful day. The police have, however, denied the role of Sanjay’s nephew Anand in the murder. But, they are yet to arrest Padia’s kin Swadhin Palei, whose name figures in the FIR.