CUTTACK: The Congress hit the streets on Saturday demanding expeditious investigation into alleged involvement of Law Minister Pratap Jena in the Mahanga double murder case. A protest meeting was organised at Kuanpal where the party leaders accused local police of deliberately delaying the reinvestigation in the case despite court order.
Acting on the order of Judicial Magistrate, First Class, Salepur, police had summoned the witnesses to Mahanga police station. But, the witnesses did not feel safe in coming to the police station and urged police to come to the murder spot to record their statements in the presence of public. However, no step has been initiated by the police in this regard so far.
“We do not understand why police are delaying collection of call details of the accused persons from December 2020 to February 5, 2021. The police are deliberately delaying the process as the call detail records (CDRs) can be saved maximum for one year,” alleged president of Mahanga Congress unit Debendra Kumar Sahoo.
Further, the mysterious death of the principal accused Prafulla Biswal near the business yard of Jena at Tangi has not been investigated properly which has direct link to the case and in which Jena’s involvement is writ large, Sahoo alleged.
The Congress workers had also burnt the effigy of Law Minister Pratap Jena. Later, hundreds of party workers led by Cuttack District Congress Committee president Manas Choudhury took out a rally from Mahanga medical square to Mahanga police station where they submitted a memorandum to IIC demanding Jena’s arrest.
They also threatened to intensify their agitation if the reinvestigation is not completed within a month.
Former Mahanga block chairman and BJP leader Kulamani Baral, his associate Dibya Singh Baral of Nrutanga were murdered by some miscreants near Jankoti when they were returning home on a motorcycle on January 2 evening.
Around a month later Prafulla Biswal, one of the accused in the case, was found dead under mysterious circumstances on a road near Tangi. The SIM card in his mobile phone was missing.