Balangir, April 17: Balangir police have arrested two persons and claimed to have solved a case of double murder.

In May last year, Kailash Agrawal, 30, and Gobardhan Pandey, 22, of Luhasingha, were found dead. Their bodies surfaced at a nearby village and the case created a sensation in the district.

The two accused were identified as Dhruba Chhatar, 26, and Gokul Chhatar, 40, of Ghagara village near Luhasingha. Sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) of Patnagarh Sunil Joshi said business rivalry between the deceased and the assailants had led to the crime.

He said the accused were uncle and nephew. “They have admitted the offence and based on inputs from them, we have recovered a sharp edged weapon (bhujali) from a pond in Ghagara village. A mini truck, in which they had travelled to the scene of crime, has been impounded.”

Joshi said: “The deceased, Kailash, was a trader of minor forest produce and used to sleep in his godown along with his help Gobardhan. On the night of May 2 last year, the two accused came on a bicycle to the spot and first killed Kailash. When Gobardhan tried to flee, they chased him down and killed him some 50 metres away. Then they wrapped the bodies in gunny bags and tarpaulins and disposed them of.”

The SDPO said that after committing the crime they called their mini-truck driver asking him to bring the vehicle to Luhasingha. “They loaded about 100 bags of ‘char seed’ (a minor forest produce) and sold it to a trader in Khariar. We got the missing link from Mohammad Sahid .”

The villagers found the bodies of Kailash and Gobardhan wrapped in tarpaulin at some distance from Luhasingha village on the morning of May 3, last year. Kailash was a young trader dealing with minor forest produce, especially mohua flower and char seed. As the police took an unusually long time to investigate and couldn’t arrest any one in connection with the case, the family members of Kailash had demanded a crime branch inquiry.