Five days after the brutal double murder in Banki, the Cuttack (Rural) police on Thursday claimed to have solved the mystery by arresting two persons. Husband of a local Sarpanch and a Congress activist Bhagaban Swain and his associate journalist Aditya Ransingh were murdered by a group of miscreants.
Demanding a Crime Branch enquiry into the incident, the Congress has described the killings on broad daylight as “political murders” and alleged that the ruling BJD is behind the crime. Police, on the other hand, continue to maintain that the murders were an outcome of previous rivalries.
“Investigations made so far have revealed that the deceased persons and the perpetrators of the crime were always at the loggerheads; and there were reports of previous assaults and counter-assaults between them,” said Cuttack (Rural) SP RB Panigrahi, adding that two persons in this connection are already arrested and two others are detained.
Meanwhile, a delegation of Congress leaders on the day met DGP Abhay at the police headquarters here and submitted a memorandum to him demanding a Crime Branch enquiry into the murders.