Even as the private school principal and four of his associates, who were arrested on Wednesday for killing a lady teacher of the same school, were remanded to judicial custody on Thursday, the motive behind the coldblooded murder is still in dark.
The police are contemplating to take the key accused in remand for further questioning.
The key accused, Paresh Mohapatra (45), and his accomplices are booked under the charges of murder and destroying evidence for killing the teacher, Alakananda Mohapatra (Mishra) (35), on July 29 and disposing of the body by burning it in a local crematorium in the same night. All the arrested were lodged in the Choudwar Circle Jail after the court of SDJM refused to grant them bail.
Meanwhile, the police have sent remnants collected from the crematorium for examination to State Forensic Science laboratory in Bhubaneswar, and there are plans to seek the court’s permission to conduct a DNA test to build up a strong case, said a senior police officer of the city.
The police also informed that the court would be approached again to take the accused persons for further questioning as investigations into the case are in a preliminary stage.
The police also did not rule out any further arrests as several other persons are likely to be questioned in this connection.
It may be mentioned that the school teacher and the principal, who had deserted their respective spouses, were in a live-in relationship for over a year at a rented house in the Sector 10 area of Abhinav Bidanasi under the Markat Nagar police station here.
Although the principal has given a confessional statement before the police that he alone had killed the teacher by strangulating her in a fit of rage, he has not yet divulged the motive behind taking the extreme step.
It was only after the teacher’s brother lodged a complaint on Tuesday before the police stating that the whereabouts of his sister were not known for last one month that the police swung into action.