BHUBANESWAR: Police constable Deepak Rout, arrested by Bhubaneswar police for murdering his wife Subhamitra Sahu, was booked in a fresh case on Friday for allegedly killing his first wife three years back.
Deepak has been booked under section 302 of IPC as the incident had taken place on March 17, 2022, before the new criminal laws came into force. Back then, he had claimed that his wife Aparna Priyadarshini, a revenue inspector, was killed after being hit by a speeding truck near Khuntuni. He had even provided the registration number of a truck but during investigation, involvement of the same vehicle could not be established by the investigators and no arrests were made.
“A new case against Deepak Rout on charges of murder has been registered. The investigation will be carried out by a DSP rank officer. The records of the case, registered in March 2022, and the witnesses who had given their statements back then will be examined again as part of our investigation,” said Cuttack Rural SP Vinit Agrawal.
After registering the case, Cuttack Rural DSP Ajay Das and SDPO Umakanta Nayak visited the spot where Aparna died and carried out inspection there. Police also recorded complainant Rojalin’s statement, said sources.
Earlier in the day, Rojalin lodged a complaint at Khuntuni police station, expressing strong suspicion that Deepak had killed her.
“My sister got married to Deepak in April 2018 after coming in contact with him through a matrimonial site. However, a few months after their marriage, Deepak, his mother and a woman relative, who was posted in Commissionerate Police Headquarters, started harassing her,” read the complaint. Rojalin said Deepak killed Aparna to receive a `1.5 crore payout from her life insurance policy. Deepak had claimed that when he was replacing his car’s flat tyre, Aparna was assisting him with her mobile phone’s torch and was hit by a speeding truck.
Meanwhile, Bhubaneswar police said DNA samples of Subhamitra were extracted and sent to the state forensics lab to confirm her identity.