Five youths were arrested and forwarded to court allegedly for assaulting and misbehaving with two home guards working in Jagatsinghpur police station on Monday.
They were identified as Tesin Khan alias Raja from Nimapara area under Puri district, Majid Saha, a resident of Adhanga village under Niali police limits, Prakash Bhoi hailing from Totasahi village, Sunil Khan, and Sk Wazid all from Nimapara area.
Reports said that on May 15 night amid Covid lockdown, a police team while conducting patrolling at Balibhainuri Chhak on Jagatsinghpur-Balikuda NH 55, had intercepted two cars and found about 10 youths inside the vehicles.
During interrogation the youths could not satisfactorily explain their purpose of journeying at that time when night curfew was in force and hence the patrolling squad asked them to move to police station.
Two home guards had boarded in the cars and the vehicles were moving to the Jagatsinghpur police station. However, in the mid way the youths stopped the cars at Ittapada Chhak and assaulted both home guards and threw them away on road before fleeing the spot.
After a few hours, locals had rescued home guards, Nabakishor Das and Prakash Kumar Parida, sustaining injuries. The police soon launched a search operation, examined the CCTV footage from several locations of Jagatsinghpur town and detected both cars had been passing towards Alipingala on the night.
Taking clues from car owners, the police could track the youths and arrested them from Nimapara. Interestingly, during police questioning, the youths disclosed that they were moving by hired cars on May 15 night to steal goats and sheep.