Director General of Police (DGP) Prakash Mishra along with IGP administration Sanjib Kumar Panda and DIG (Central) RP Koche on Saturday visited the crime scene and interacted with the investigation officer and district SP Anup Kumar Sahu regarding progress in the investigation about Friday night gun attack on law, Tourism and Culture Minister Maheswar Mohanty.
The DGP told newspersons that it was a preplanned attack on the Minister to eliminate him and the police have got definite clues regarding involvement of local persons in the crime. He assured that the miscreants would be arrested soon.
Meanwhile, the police have arrested seven professional criminals involved in several shootouts earlier and recovered four mousers, twelve mobile phones and two bikes from them. This apart, the police were also examining two eye witnesses to ascertain the identification of the criminals. The witnesses have shops near the scene of crime and were present at the time of attack. Mohanty was shot allegedly by three youths at about 9.15 pm while he was going on a bike. He was returning home after attending a meeting at night. The shooters who were chasing the Minister in another bike sped away after firing at their target.
Biju Janata Dal (BJD) activists on Saturday went in a massive rally from the Gundicha Temple to the Shree Jagannath Temple and lighted hundreds of diyas in front of the Jagannath Temple main gate praying the lord for early recovery of Mohanty. Many senior residents and institutions condemned the brutal attack on the Minister and demanded stringent actions against the culprits.
This is the second fatal attack on Mohanty. Earlier in January, 2012, when Mohanty was PR Minister, he was attacked by one Balabhadra Bhoi alias Baban with an iron rod while he was attending a party workers' meeting in a village under Chandanpur police station limits. Mohanty had to undergo treatment for complex internal head injury as he was hit on the head then and was hospitalised for a long period. While the attacker Baban was nabbed from the spot by the BJD workers, the police had charge sheeted a number of Congress local functionaries in the case. The case came up for trail in the court and recently the Minister had deposed in the court.