BALANGIR: Police on Tuesday arrested seven persons from Jharkhand for the murder of a man and a woman, whose bodies were found in a forest near Tandamunda village in Balangir district on October 24.
Police said the murder of Javed Ali (30) and Palak Mishra (22), from Jharkhand was the fallout of failure in delivering a ganja consignment. The accused are Ashutosh Goutam, Gourav Kumar, Chandan Kumar of Bokaro, Badal Kumar, Rajeev Goutam, Vishal Kumar of Aurangabad, Bihar and Rajendra Seth of Balangir.
IGP Himansu Lal and SP Khilari Rishikesh Dnyandeo informed at least eight people were involved in the murder of Javed and Palak. A gang had been trafficking ganja from Balangir to different districts of Odisha and neighbouring states including Jharkhand. The victims were members of the gang, and their role was to traffick ganja in small consignments through girls brought to Balangir to be engaged in prostitution, police said.
As per police, the victims had received `7 lakh from Ashutosh but failed to repay. Ashutosh and his associates then arrived at Balangir and tortured the victims in their rented house. They then took both of them to a forest where they killed them.