BERHAMPUR: Baidyanathpur police on Thursday arrested a woman and her daughter for allegedly setting afire the belongings of their tenant in Khodasingi area of Berhampur.
The accused are Jyotirani Sahu and her daughter Mousumi Sahu. Police said the duo had rented their house to one Aswini Samantasinghar of Puri. Samantasinghar paid them two months’ rent as advance along with one month’s rent and moved into the house three months ago.
However, he failed to pay the rent for the last two months following which Jyotirani asked him to vacate her premises last week. When he requested her to return his remaining advance amount, she allegedly refused.
In the meantime, Samantasinghar had to go to Puri for an emergency. On returning to Berhampur on Wednesday, he found his room locked. When he asked Jyotirani to unlock it, she reportedly did not agree. Subsequently, Samantasinghar lodged a complaint with Baidyanathpur police.
Acting on the complaint, police asked the accused to open the lock and allow Samantasinghar to take his belongings. However, the mother-daughter duo did not respond.
On Thursday, police reached Jyotirani’s house with a magistrate and broke open the lock.
To their surprise, all the belongings of Samantasinghar were missing. Police later searched the area and found partially-burnt documents and clothes at the back of the house.
Police verified the CCTV footage which confirmed that Jyotirani and Mousumi had removed Samantasinghar’s belongings from the house and set those on fire. The accused duo was arrested and produced in court.