Bhubaneswar, Aug. 18: Police today arrested Sangram Rout, 48, a former BSF jawan, who was one of the key accused in a triple murder case and was absconding for more than 18 years.

The triple murder took place at Ganjeibadi village in Bhadrak rural police limits in June 1999.

The police said as many as 25 accused had avenged the murder of a relative of Rout when they killed the three deceased near the grave of the relative of Rout with sharp-edged weapons.

Sunakar Malik, Dushmanta Jena and Prafulla Jena were beaten to death by the group.

"Of the 25 accused, seven are now facing life imprisonment, while eight are out on bail. Three of them were acquitted, while another seven remained absconding. Before the arrest of Rout, we nabbed another of the absconders in February this year," said a police officer.

Superintendent of police Anup Kumar Sahoo said Rout had committed the crime when he was on leave from duty. He didn't go back to the BSF after the murder. "All through the 18 years, he stayed in various areas in Delhi and Bangalore doing odd jobs. We got a tip off that Rout was coming to his home on Thursday night. Subsequently, we raided his house this afternoon and nabbed him. We are also trying to nab the other accused who remain absconding," said Sahoo.

Rout had visited his house several times in the past 18 years, but had somehow managed to give the slip to the cops.

"We have raided his house several times, but he managed to flee. Today when our team raided his house, he tussled with our men and tried to escape. But our men managed to nab him. Finally," said inspector in charge of Bhadrak Rural police station Sudarshan Gangai.

Extra-marital case

A video clip, in which a wife is spotted thrashing the alleged girlfriend of her husband at the Bhubaneswar airport, has gone viral on social networking sites.

This comes a few weeks after another video had gone viral in which a 29-year-old youth was seen being thrashed by two girls in a city park allegedly over a love affair.

In today's incident, the woman alleged the other woman had an illicit relationship with her husband even though the wife had requested her to stay away.

"We have been married for the past seven years and I tried to contact my husband as my son took ill. But later I came to know that my husband had gone to Bangalore with the woman on a pleasure trip. I went to the airport to confront my husband, but the woman tried to intervene," alleged the woman. However, no police complaint has been lodged in this connection.