All the nine accused of the much-publicised Santha Mishra murder case in the year 1999 in Sundargarh were acquitted by the District and Sessions Judge here on Friday due to lack of evidence against them.
Out of the nine accused who were acquitted, two of them have already died. Although as many as 37 witnesses were placed by the prosecution, most of them did not turn up, following which the accused were acquitted.
Santha Mishra, who was holding position of president of Sundargarh Truck Owners’ Association and was a very well known person of Sundargarh area, was killed in a bomb attack on him near Ranibagicha area on March 7,1999, when he was on his way. Sundargarh town police had registered a murder case and had started investigation.
Police had claimed that a group of about nine persons had hired a supari killer group to kill Mishra, due to some business rivalry. Police had arrested nine persons, identified as Yasobanda Sahoo, Raju Sahoo, Sanjay Singh, Ashok Sunani, Salim Samad, Ajit Nabarangi, James Kerketa, Akshay Nayak and Santosh Gupta in this case as the main accused and forwarded them to court.
As many as thirty seven witnesses were placed by the police, but none of them could produce any evidences.