Balasore: Khantapara police on Tuesday unfolded the murder case of a 40-year-old former sarpanch by arresting his wife and her 28-year-old paramour, who was also the deceased's driver.

The crime was committed five days ago.

The accused duo, identified as Tilottama Daspradhan of Barunsing village and Mitesh Parida of Sergarh, have been booked under sections of murder and common intention, said the police. They were sent to jail after their bail petitions had got rejected.

The police said the reason behind the murder was extra-martial relationship between Tilottama and Mitesh.

On the night of Saturday, Jaydev Daspradhan, 40, of Barunsing village died on way to hospital while he was being shifted to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Bhubaneswar. Later, the father of the deceased had lodged a police complaint.

On Sunday morning, the police began investigation with the help of a scientific team and a sniffer dog and suspected this to be a murder case. As the deceased had deep head injury, it raised the cops' suspicion.

Khantapara police station inspector-in-charge K.C. Palai said Mitesh used to drive Jaydev's four-wheeler, which he had owned about four years ago. Since then, Tillotamma, a mother of two, had developed a relationship with Mitesh.

Sources said that because of the affair between the duo, there had been a marital discord between Jaydev and Tilottama.

Following this, Mitesh, a bachelor, was disengaged from his service, and since then, he had been running a roadside betel shop.

On the night of the incident, Tilottama had left the door of their open knowingly. Around 1am, Mitesh had entered the house through the rear gate, and she gave him an axe to kill Jaydev. With the weapon, Mitesh hit Jaydev on his head.

"The accused duo confessed to the crime. The weapon of offence is also seized. The needle of suspicion was towards the deceased's wife as the gate was left opened. Further, we found all the call details and text messages deleted from her mobile phone. The call details report revealed conversations between the accused duo for a number of times before and after the incident. After sustained interrogation, they confessed about their relationship and to have committed the crime," said Palai.