BHUBANESWAR: When the mob was lynching GRP constable Soumya Ranjan Swain in full public glare at Balianta on Thursday morning, the Commissionerate Police sent in just a three-member team in a PCR van to tackle the extremely violent situation, it has been reliably learnt. No senior police officer was at the spot for the next few hours.
The PCR van comprising a non-policeman driver, two home guards, including a woman and a constable, arrived at the spot after receiving a call on emergency response support system (ERSS) dial - 112.
It has now emerged that the cops had arranged the plank to which Swain was tied because he was ‘beyond control.’ Police sources say he may have been on some intoxicant or steroids.
The response of Commissionerate Police to the volatile situation has come under scrutiny as it provided highly inadequate security and could not prevent the brutal mob justice which has drawn widespread outrage across the country.
As per police, after the two women were allegedly assaulted near Ramachandrapur by Swain and his friend Om Prakash Rout, locals rushed to the formers’ rescue. As a large mob gathered, Rout managed to escape but Swain continued to engage the locals. However, realising he was in trouble he also fled into a farm field by the roadside. The locals, though, caught up with him. Swain, who is also a fitness trainer and bodybuilder, was dragged around by the attackers and rained with blows, kicks and punches.
When this was happening barely 7 km from Balianta police station, all the IICs and ACPs of the city were attending the monthly crime meeting at DCP office. The local police station received the emergency call but failed to anticipate gravity of the situation.
The PCR team upon its arrival at Ramachandrapur was completely outnumbered and stood no chance to control the frenzied mob. With no police reinforcement in sight, the mob continued to attack Swain in front of the three cops.
The police personnel tried to restrain Swain and pack him into the PCR van but in vain. The stocky GRP constable jumped off the van twice. Then the attempt to tie him to the wooden/iron plank was made. Even when he was being carried, the mob did not back down and kept raining the bodily assaults.
Eventually, police had to call a pick-up van to shift him to Balakati community health centre but by then he had been seriously injured. Subsequently, Swain was shifted to Capital Hospital where doctors declared him dead.
By the time police realised the gravity of the situation and Balianta IIC Anil Kumar Parida and zone IV ACP Abhimanyu Nayak left the DCP office, the damage had been done. Soon after, the IICs and ACPs of nearby police stations too rushed to the spot.
This was followed by DCP Jagmohan Meena’s visit in the afternoon and police commissioner S Dev Datta Singh later in the evening.
Swain was the only son of his parents, who have demanded stringent action against all the culprits. His father alleged it was a pre-planned murder. The locals staged a blockade on Phulnakhara-Niali road within Olatpur police limits on the day to protest the murder.
