Bhubaneswar, July 15: Six persons were arrested today in connection with the murder of a mobile phone shop owner that took place last night, barely 200 metres from a police station, when the city was on high alert following Mumbai blasts and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s state visit.

Police said the victim, Srinibas Reddy, 35, was killed following a group clash in which four other persons, including one of the accused, had sustained injuries.

Sources said Srinibas, who owned a mobile phone-repairing shop at Saheed Nagar, had gone to Falikia Bazar near Rajamahal Square last night along with two of his brothers after getting a call from his brother-in-law, D. Lohi Das Reddy. On arriving at Failikia Bazar, they found that Lohi had sustained injuries in an attack by the accused. Reddy and his brothers — Srikanta and Keshwa — were also attacked with sharp weapons by the accused.

Srikanta, the younger brother of the deceased, lodged a complaint with the capital police. Srikanta said the accused and their friends had attacked him and his brothers with sharp weapons and iron rods. “My brother died and we sustained injuries,” he said.

Lohi, an autorickshaw driver, said he took a passenger to Falikia Bazar last night, as the latter wanted to buy liquor from there. The passenger had got into a quarrel with the accused and when Lohi intervened, they beat him up, too. Following the incident, Srinibas and his brothers had been rushed to Capital Hospital, where the former was declared brought dead. The condition of one of Srinibas’s brothers is critical.

The police raided Falikia Bazar and its nearby slum and arrested the culprits.

The accused were identified as Ganapati Reddy, 25, Kamesh Reddy, 31, Jaga Das, 22, Simanchal Kunja, 19, Kanta Rao, 32, and D. Rammu, 20. While some of them are from Chatrapur in Ganjam, others hail from Andhra Pradesh. They have been living in the slum for past sometime.

Deputy commissioner of police Nitinjeet Singh, said: “These criminals had been arrested within 12 hours of the incident. The weapons, used in the crime, were also seized from them.” Singh, added that there had been several cases pending against them in different police stations of the city.

About the illegal liquor shops running in the slum, he said the police had been regularly conducting raids on such establishments.