Bhubaneswar: The commissionerate police Tuesday detained one of the two friends of the deceased, Manish Anurag Das, son of senior scribe Navin Das, who was with him in the party on the fateful day.
Sources said the youth, one of the two friends, had picked up Anurag from Galaxy Garden in Infocity area Saturday night.
The police have been interrogating the accused to elicit details of the events that culminated in the death of Anurag. Sources, however, claimed four more persons involved in the case have been detained.
A senior police official told this newspaper that investigating officers suspected foul play as the persons present with Anurag at South Sea Hotel in Patrapada are still absconding. The white car (OD 02X 9696) in which the deceased traveled with his friends has been seized.
Meanwhile, an AIIMS spokesperson said initial reports of the postmortem suggest that Anurag died of asphyxiation. However, the reports of diatom test and other scientific examinations would reveal whether any external force or drowning led to the suffocation. The spokesperson also claimed that doctors failed to find any sign of external injuries on Anurag’s body.
Police claimed it is difficult to conclude at this stage whether he accidentally fell into the pond and died of suffocation or someone killed him by asphyxiation and later threw the body into the pond.
CCTV footage Tuesday showed the deceased was walking out of the hotel alone at around 3.30am Sunday. The hotel staff informed media persons that Anurag’s friends had left half an hour before he left.
Earlier, father of the deceased, while posing faith in the police investigation, alleged in a video message that his son had been murdered by his friends who called him to attend a feast Saturday night. He said the commissioner of police, Saumendra Priyadarshi, has assured him of apprehending the persons involved in the murder of his son.
According to Das, his son told him over phone– the last call from him at 4:11am– that he was being beaten up by the abductors who allegedly demanded ransom for his release.
