CUTTACK: Four days after 13-year-old Jyoti Prakash Behera was brutally murdered at Purbakachha village within Jagatsinghpur police limits, the Commissionerate Police is clueless about the motive of the crime and the culprits.
“After verifying the CCTV footage of the nearby locality, we are questioning several people. But nothing concrete has evolved so far to take the investigation forward,” said ACP Arun Swain. Neither the boy nor his parents have enmity with anyone in the locality.
The possibility of human sacrifice is remote as no indications of any pooja and other rituals associated with such sacrifice were found in the locality, he added. “It is a clear case of murder. We have presumed some motives based on which the investigation is being carried out. We hope to crack the case soon,” said Swain.
Jyoti, a class VII student of Nrusingha Bidyapitha, has been missing since December 16 morning. The boy had reportedly left home after his father Jagannath Behera, a mason by profession, rebuked him for not focusing on his studies.
The villagers, who had seen the boy near his house till evening, are questioning why Jagannath and his wife Namita had not gone out to search for their only son in the night.
On Sunday morning, some locals found the boy’s body lying in a pool of blood with his throat slit near the village pond and informed his family as well as police. The boy’s throat was slit with a sickle. But, the weapon of offence is yet to be recovered and seized.