Chhatrapur: Police have arrested one more person in connection with the murder of a man at Rameyapalli village under Chamakhandi police limits in Ganjam district. The man N Venkataraman, 50, was beaten to death by local villagers as they suspected he practiced sorcery and witchcraft. Two others were critically injured in the attack which took place June 19.
The arrested person has been identified as B Shankar Rao and he was produced in court Tuesday and remanded to judicial custody after his bail plea was rejected. Earlier the police had taken into custody 13 people after investigating the video of the murder which had gone viral.
The arrests were made after one of injured victims P Bhimaraju, 50, lodged a complaint in the Chamakhandi police station after the incident. The other person who was injured in the fracas was P Dhabaleswar Reddy of Lanjipalli main road in Berhampur.
In the disturbing video, the deceased, Venkataraman along with Bhimaraju and Reddy are seen at the receiving end of a mob assault.
Later, a critically injured Venkatraman was given pliers and asked to pull out his own teeth. A hapless Venkataraman was seen making desperate attempts to pull out his teeth. Subsequently, the attackers got his teeth pulled out by another victim. However, they did not spare Venkataraman who subsequently died due to the murderous assault.
The incident occurred after Venktaraman and Dhableswar visited the house of Bhimaraju on his invitation to perform some rituals. They were performing the rituals when over 30 villagers barged into Bhimaraju’s house and assaulted the trio and dragged them outside.
