Kamakhyanagar: Kamakhyanagar Police Saturday arrested eight persons on charge of critical assault and murder bid on Parjang tehsildar S Subhra Patel during a raid to check illegal soil lifting at Patharkhamba village the previous day.
The accused persons were identified as Gunanidhi Sahu, 27, Tripura Parida, 61, Tulu Parida, 27, Suresh Parida, 58, Shibaram Parida, 35, of Patharkhamba village, Prafulla Sahu, 50, of Muktapasi village, Dushmant Sahu, 46, of Ram Temple area in Kamakhyanagar and Pandav Gagrai, 48, of Chulia village.
The accused after their arrest were produced in the court and remanded to judicial custody after the magistrate rejected their bail pleas. An earthmover and two tractors were seized in this connection and sent to the Transport department for verification. This was stated here by SP Gyanaranjan Mohapatra while speaking at a press meet at the sub-divisional police office in Kamakhyanagar, Saturday.
The attack on the tehsildar occurred when he raided Patharkhamba village after being tipped off about illegal soil lifting on government land near the canal flowing in the village.
The tehsildar accompanied by revenue inspector (RI) Alok Lenka, junior clerk Premananda Behera, Muktapasi RI Suphala Nayak launched a surprise raid in the village. The tehsildar opposed the illegal soil lifting from government land and was trying to videograph the illegal act on his mobile phone when the miscreants launched an organaised attack on him with lathis and thrashed him. They even tried to kill him and tried to run him over with an earthmover (JCB machine) engaged in soil extraction in the locality.
The incident took place when some people were extracting soil illegally from a piece of government land at Patharkhamba Friday morning. The miscreants did not spare RI Alok Jena and other tehsil officials when they tried to intervene to rescue the injured tehsildar.
Later, they fled the scene. Critically injured, the tehsildar was rescued and admitted to Kamakhyanagar sub-divisional hospital. A case was registered in this connection under various sections of IPC after the tehsildar was discharged post-primary treatment.
On being directed by the SP, a special police team led by SDPO Ranjan Kumar Dey and Kamakhyanagar IIC Sarat Kumar Mahallick and other police officials raided Muktapasi village at late Friday night and arrested the 8 accused persons.
It is suspected that vehicle owners might be behind the attack on the tehsildar. They will be arrested if the claims are found to be true, the SP said. Among others, the SDPO, IIC and several police officials were present in the press meet.
PNN