Kendrapara: Police have cracked the assault and murder case of a 36- year-old Dalit tractor driver and arrested six individuals, including a man and his two sons, for their involvement in the crime. Kendrapara Superintendent of Police Siddharth Kataria informed reporters Thursday that Mantu Malik, the deceased driver from Nikirai village, was pushed by the accused into the Birupa River from the Indupur bridge following a dispute last Thursday. All the arrested individuals are residents of Krishnanagar under the Bari police jurisdiction in Jajpur district. They had been hiding in various locations in Kendrapara, Jajpur, and Khurda districts.
The Nikirai police conducted raids at their hideouts and apprehended them, according to Sanjay Kumar Mallick, the IIC of Nikirai police station. Police reported that Mantu Malik had assaulted one Tikili Jena August 14, prompting Jena to call his two sons, Banti and Lituna. The father and his sons then assaulted Mantu, took him to their village in Krishnanagar, and later dragged him to the middle of the bridge where they pushed him into the Birupa River. Mantu’s body was recovered from the Brahmani river near Jagannathpur under the Pattamundai police jurisdiction, the following day, according to the SP. All the accused confessed to their crime during interrogation. They were booked under Section 103, 3(5) of the BNS, and produced before the SDJM court in Kendrapara, which remanded them to jail custody.