The Puri police on Tuesday arrested four more persons in connection with the broad daylight murder of former Puri Jagannath Temple Managing Committee member Krushna Pratihari from Koraput. They were nabbed when they were attempting to flee from the State.
Puri SP Kanwar Vishal Singh told reporters that the arrested Kunmun Suar, Tutu Mohapatra, Hari Panda and Jagan Khatei were present at the spot where Krushna was shot dead.
Singh said the four assailants fled by motorcycle to the Satpada forest after committing the crime and spent two days in a jungle. They managed to elude the police dragnet under the cover of dense vegetation. Then, they fled to Chilika, where they spent two days on a boat.
“Later, they were planning to leave the State but were nabbed by a police team in Koraput due to good coordination between the Puri police and the counterparts of neighbouring districts," said Singh.
He said a total of seven teams, comprising seven Inspectors, a DSP and an Additional SP were formed to track down the assailants.
Singh said the case posed ‘a real challenge’ to the police. The task of tracing the accused became all the more difficult as they were using mobile phones to prevent detection of their locations. So, the police had to rely on other techniques and human intelligence to track them down.
"We will seek custodial remand of the accused and recreate the crime scene in a couple of days to ascertain the role of each accused in the murder."
Earlier on Monday, police had arrested six people, including two key conspirators Kalia Singhari and Dolagobinda Singhari, who had allegedly hatched the plot to bum off Krushna.
Police have already clarified that Krushna's murder was a revenge killing and fallout of the Guna Singhari murder case of 2012.
As per the revelations so far, the contract killers were promised Rs 30 lakh for killing Krushna. Meanwhile, police have intensified efforts to trace the weapon of offence and the vehicles used by the assassins.