Bhubaneswar: Family members of a 23-year-old man whose mutilated body was found lying beside the railway tracks near Poonama Gate level crossing here Thursday alleged that he had been murdered, and the body had been dumped near the tracks to make it look like an accident.
The allegations reportedly stemmed from the multiple injuries on the deceased’s abdomen and back when the family members found the body. Government Railway Police (GRP) IIC Ashok Kumar Gocchayat said the deceased has been identified as Swaraj Kumar Behera who lived with his parents in Kunjapatna Sahi area under the jurisdiction of Lingaraj police station. Swaraj’s family members claimed that he had been done to death by some of his rivals over past enmity. They alleged that Swaraj had a running feud with the miscreants since past few days. “On Wednesday night he (Swaraj) left home around 11 pm for the New Year’s Eve celebrations. A few hours later, when his parents tried to contact him over phone, the calls went unanswered. They grew anxious and made frantic calls to his friends to know his whereabouts”, Gocchayat added. He said GRP was alerted about the body by locals in the wee hours of Thursday. The police later sent it to the Capital Hospital for autopsy.
However, later in the day, irate locals, including Swaraj’s family members, staged a protest near Gosagareswar Square in Old Town area, demanding a fair police probe, and immediate arrest of the murderers. Personnel from the Lingaraj police station intervened and normalised traffic on Ratha Road by pacifying the agitators.
