Nimapara: Additional district and sessions judge Chintamani Panda Friday awarded life imprisonment to three convicts while pronouncing his final verdict on a case pertaining to the murder of retired Puri District Education Officer (DEO) Dinabandhu Mallick and three of his family members at Dinadia village under Astarang police limits September 21, 2015.
The judge had earlier convicted Himadri Sekhar Das alias Rahim Khan of Midnapore in West Bengal, his wife Aisha Begum of Raipur in Chhattisgarh and Mallick’s brother-in-law, Fakir Mallick of Nayagarh, in connection with the murder.
The judge pronounced his verdict by taking into account the statements of 31 witnesses and other circumstantial evidences.
According to court proceedings, Rahim and Aisha had developed a cordial relation with Mallick’s brother-in-law, Fakir, a few years ago. The duo had also succeeded in establishing a close relationship with Mallick and his wife Nirmala and visited Mallick’s Dinadia residence quite a few times prior to the incident.
The couple had reached Mallick’s residence around 8 pm September 21, 2015 and requested to stay for the night. First, they killed Mallick who was asleep and later murdered Nirmala who tried to save her husband. Subsequently, Rahim and Aisha killed the Mallicks’ two minor daughters to eliminate all evidences. They killed Mallick and the other three by slitting their throats. The sole purpose of the killings was to loot.
Soon after killing Mallick and his family members, Rahim and Aisha had left for Raipur via Angul in Dhenkanal district after looting jewellery, a motorcycle and a few mobile phones from Mallick’s residence. They reached Assam by train via Bhopal, Kharagpur and Silchar after selling the stolen jewellery for Rs 30,000.
Police had registered a case in this regard and begun a probe. Subsequently, the case was handed over to the Crime Branch (CB).
The CB officials had traced Rahim and Aisha to a slum near Indo-Bangladesh border in Assam by tracking their mobile phones. A special team of CB had nabbed the couple October 9, 2015.
Subsequently, CB officials came to know that Fakir was the mastermind behind the incident. They had arrested Fakir October 10, 2015.
Meanwhile, Mallick’s relatives and some locals urged the CB to approach a higher court seeking capital punishment for the three convicts.