Manas Parida

Balasore, Jan. 23: Police have arrested a person, identified as Manas Parida, for killing a 35-year-old woman in Nilgiri forest on January 10.

The cops have suspected an extra-marital affair to be the reason behind the murder.

Manas, 35, is the brother-in-law of the deceased. The accused is a history-sheeter and has been involved in as many as 22 cases in various police stations across the state.

“Manas was staying with the victim mostly in Bhubaneswar,” said Nilgiri sub-divisional police officer Siba Prasad Mallick.

“The woman’s mingling with other male persons became intolerable to Manas. When he warned her, she blackmailed him stating that she would expose his criminal activities before the police,” he said.

The accused had brought the victim to Balasore from Bhubaneswar on some pretexts in order to kill her.

Manas took her to the Nilgiri forests, and after strangulating her to death, he threw her body in a deserted place near Tinikoshia.

Local people, who had gone to the forests to fetch firewood, found the body on January 11.

Initially, the victim could not be identified. Later, her father Mayadhar Behera, a native of Oupada, identified her.

Injury marks were found on the victim’s body.

She was wearing only a petticoat and blouse, while her saree, shoes and vanity bag were found at a distance. The police began investigation with the help of a scientific team and a sniffer dog. Later, it had registered an unnatural death case.

During investigation, the victim’s father said that she had been staying with her brother-in-law (husband of her younger sister) for about four years. She had earlier married in Kalahandi district, but deserted her husband following a marital dispute. Based on the information, the police arrested Parida.