BHUBANESWAR/JHARSUGUDA: Chhattisgarh Police on Friday provided chilling account of former legislator Anup Kumar Sai’s alleged planned murder of a mother-daughter duo for which he was arrested after a marathon 18 hours of interrogation on Thursday.
Raigarh Police undertook a painstaking investigation that spanned four years and took them to six States necessitating interrogation of at least 700 persons to crack the case.
Laying its hands on the former BJD leader was not easy - he allegedly did not cooperate with probe and never turned up for questioning using his political clout despite being denied ticket last year for the Assembly elections. But the brutal and gory manner in which the former Brajarajnagar MLA is alleged to have eliminated 35-year-old Kalpana Das and her minor daughter has sent shockwaves in political circles.
Raigarh SP Santosh Kumar told mediapersons that Sai confessed to the killing and the modus operandi of the murder which he apparently carried out with help of his driver and few others.
Sai was apparently in a relationship with Kalpana since 2011 but conspired to eliminate her when she insisted on marriage and demanded a share in his property. According to Chhattisgarh Police, Sai was staying with Kalpana and her daughter in a three-storey building in Bhubaneswar as a family. Everything was smooth till Kalpana expressed interest to marry him and sought a share in Sai’s property.
She also wanted the building, purchased by Sai, to be transferred in her name. Sai then hatched the conspiracy to eliminate the two.
On the pretext of marriage at Raigarh, the former MLA sent both the mother and daughter to Jharsuguda on May 5, 2016 in a bus. He followed them in his own car along with his driver Barman Toppo. From Jharsuguda, the four left for Raigarh in the same vehicle.
False marriage promise, brutal murder
However, at Raigarh, he told them that there are no good hotels around and they should stay in a relative’s house at Hamirpur.
On the way, Kalpana and her daughter were fatally assaulted near Sakambari plant. The former MLA allegedly did not stop at that and to destroy identity of the two deceased, he along with his driver mauled the bodies under their vehicle several times.
Then they fled via Hamirpur to Odisha, the Raigarh SP said. Post-mortem report of the deceased revealed that they were first hit with a blunt object before being run over by a vehicle.
It took police almost a year to ascertain their identity, the SP said adding that a constable of Odisha Police, relative of the deceased, identified them first. A case (158/16) was registered at Chakradhar Nagar police station under Section 302 of IPC on May 7, 2016.
When mobile phone calls of Kalpana were traced, the needle of suspicion turned towards Sai. The call details took police to various locations. Though police found evidence against the former MLA in 2017, it took them three years to arrest him.
During investigation, 700 people from Odisha, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were interrogated, the Raigarh SP said. The former MLA has been sent to jail after Raigarh Court in Chhattisgarh rejected his bail plea.