In a significant achievement, the Baleswar police after busting a crime syndicate arrested four persons including a goldsmith involved in several crimes. SP Awinash Kumar said, “All of them are hardcore thugs and are involved in a series of crimes. Their area of operations spanned from Baleswar to Mayurbhanj, Bhadrak, Kenojhar, Jajpur and other neighbouring districts. Through various ways they used to cheat common innocent people and were able to take away valuable articles like jewellery, cash and household articles etc”.
“A laptop, DVD player, motorbike, mobile, gold jewellery and cash were recovered from them,” he informed. The arrested were identified as Iswar Mahalik (45) of Samraipur under Remuna police station, Ranjan Mahalik (19) of Radhanagar, Prabhakar Behera (24) of Niali, Cuttack and Santosh Sahu (42) of Bhubaneswar.
Santosh, a gold trader, was receiving stolen articles while the mastermind was Iswar, said police. Iswar while nabbed by the Remuna police was further taken by Soro police in connection with the cases in their area. Police also seized arms including crude bombs from his house after a search. Police found a number closed circuit cameras installed in his house.
In the latest case, he had thrown hot oil on a police man of a raiding team when they went to his house to catch him on Friday night. ASI Udhab Dasmahapatra sustained injuries due to hot oil attack. In the recent past, the gang had looted two gold chains from two women in Soro area, said Soro IIC Dayanidhi Das.