Three youths, including an engineering college student and a technician were arrested by Chandua police in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district on Friday in connection with the threat calls made to BJD MP Laxman Tudu in the name of Maoists.
They have been identified as Premanshu Mohapatra (25), son of Ashok Mohapatra of Nuagaon village, Heeralal Senapati (26), son of Pandu Charan Senapati of Bombay Chhack, both under Jharpokharia police limits and Sushanta Pradhan of Jagatpur in Cuttack district.
While Premanshu studies BTech in a private engineering college at Jharpokharia and Heeralal works as a junior technician at the local electrical division, Sushanta is a businessperson. They will be produced in the court on Saturday.
Chandua police station IIC Jayanarayan Khandei said the accused have confessed to the crime and admitted that they had called Tudu to extract money. Police tracked the cell phone to locate the callers and nabbed them within 24 hours. Premanshu and Sushanta have been booked under sections 506 and 384 of IPC while Heeralal was booked under section 109 of IPC.
“The call was made by Premanshu who had brought the SIM card from Heeralal. Interestingly, Sushanta had made another call to the MP on Thursday after going through the reports in the newspapers. They all have been rounded up. Preliminary investigations revealed they did not have any links with the Maoists,” he informed.
Tudu, who is also the Mayurbhanj district president of the BJD, had alleged that he received a series of threat calls since October 4. The caller who identified himself as a Maoist had demanded him Rs 10 lakh. He also had received an SMS, which threatened him with dire consequences for not paying the money.
While the threat calls had left the police in a tizzy, the MP had skipped the party's Jana Sampark Padayatra in Kuliana and Sarasakana blocks following suggestions from the Superintendent of Police for security reasons. Security was also tightened at his Chandua residence.