Post News Network
Nuapada/Komna, August 21: A 22-year-old youth who had gone missing a week after he was picked up by jawans of a Special Operations Group (SOG) camp at Soseng inside Sunabeda sanctuary in Nuapada district was Friday found dead by police, who recovered his body from a nearby forest.
Chitta Ranjan Sahu alias Bablu and two of his friends were detained by the jawans August 15 on suspicions of theft. The jawans reportedly assaulted Bablu and his friend Nutan Naik the whole night, resulting in fatal injuries to Sahu. Naik also suffered grievous injuries. The third, a minor, was released by the jawans.
The jawans later took a badly-injured Naik to several hospitals including VSS Medical College and Hospital in Burla. He was later shifted to Raipur as his condition worsened.
Finding no trace of Sahu, his father Uddhab lodged a murder complaint against the SOG jawans at Komna police station. The jawans claimed Sahu had fled the camp.
The police stepped up its probe and sent its DIG (southwest) S Shiny to Nuapada Thursday to investigate Sahu’s disappearance. During the course of its investigation, a few jawans confessed that Sahu succumbed to severe torture at the hands of the jawans.
Based on their confession, a police team went to a spot about four km away from the Soseng camp late Thursday night and exhumed the body in the presence of a magistrate. Khariar sub-divisional police officer Shantanu Das, tehsildar Priyabrata Padhi and other senior officials were present when the body was recovered.
The body was sent for post-mortem and was later handed over to his family amidst tight security, said Nuapada superintendent of police Pinak Mishra.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Friday expressed his condolences to the bereaved family and announced a compensation of `10 lakh.
Speaking in the Assembly Friday, Patnaik termed the incident “unfortunate” and said the local judicial magistrate would conduct an inquiry and fix responsibility, and promised to initiate stringent disciplinary action. “My government will take stringent action against all those responsible for the case and no one will be spared,” the CM vowed.
“Four of the involved SOG personnel have been placed under suspension,” Patnaik told the House, adding the government would bear the entire cost of Naik’s treatment.
Meanwhile, tensions ran high at Komna with locals, backed by political parties, going on a bandh since Friday morning.
