File picture of Biranchi Das at Capital Hospital in Bhubaneswar after being shot in April 2008.

Bhubaneswar, Dec. 13: It was April 13, the Vishubh Sankranti day in 2008, when judo coach Biranchi Das was shot dead outside his coaching centre behind the state museum in the capital.

Shots rang out at the gate of the centre when Das’s students were busy making and drinking “pana” (a drink made of bel juice and banana pulp), which is peculiar to Vishubh Sankranti celebrations.

The police soon launched a manhunt for gangster Sandeep Acharya, alias Raja, and his accomplice, Akhaya Behera, alias Chagala, who had reportedly called at the judo centre to speak to the coach.

The gangster allegedly bore a grudge against the coach for trying to stop him from getting close to album actress Leslie Tripathy, who had lodged a police complaint against Raja for harassing her.

But Raja and Chagala seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Police were unable to trace them despite a string of raids. The first breakthrough in the case came 16 days after the crime, when on April 22, Chagala, a criminal from Cuttack, suddenly appeared in the office of a private television channel in Bhopal and made a public confession of having killed Biranchi Das.

Police promptly brought him to Bhubaneswar for further interrogation.

On May 5, 2008 Raja, the main accused in the case, surrendered before police at Panaji, the capital of Goa, where he had been living incognito after the murder.

His arrival and interrogation in Bhubaneswar triggered a public furore as he pointed accusing fingers at some bigwigs including an IAS officer and a high profile police officer.

The charges in the case were framed on August 1, 2009 and the trial began a month later.

A total of 29 witnesses, including five eyewitnesses, were deposed in Bhubaneswar’s fast track court III. The eyewitnesses included Biranchi’s wife Gitanjali Panda, her sister Shraddhanjali and three of his students.

The arguments in the case drew to an end on November 21 this year with the court setting December 13 as the day of the judgement. Fast track court III judge Bibekanand Das delivered the 72-page judgement today.

Two platoons of police were deployed on the court premises to ward off the possibility of any untoward incident.

Though the sentences against the two convicts would be pronounced on December 17, their lawyers have already made it clear that they would be challenging the verdict in the higher court.