Phulbani: The police Tuesday claimed that the tribal couple who were suspected to have been killed by Maoists in Odisha’s Kandhamal district were hacked to death by the villagers suspecting them of performing black magic.
The incident took place at Gadapadar village in Kandhamal district March 8. The couple’s bodies were recovered the next day in a pool of blood in a forested area with injuries on their heads.
Though initially it was suspected that the couple, identified as Batasi Kanhar (41) and Tahira Kanhar (45) were killed by Maoists, the investigation later revealed that they were rather hacked to death by villagers, said Kandhamal SP, Subhendu Patra.
After recovering the bodies, the police suspected that the double murder could not have been done by Maoists as the manner of killing was different. The killers had attacked the middle of the heads with hard objects. The Maoists usually do not adopt this method to kill anyone, police said.
The police investigation further revealed that the villagers suspected the couple of performing witchcraft after some people in the locality fell ill. The couple was of a religious bent of mind and used to perform puja in their house.
The couple was accused of sorcery and evicted from the village and they had shifted to outside the village. At a village committee meeting March 4, the people decided to kill the couple and hired one Sunil Digal the principal accused to executive the crime for Rs 40,000.
Sunil later confessed before the police and said that he was accompanied by around 10 other people to kill the couple. They first killed Batasi then her husband Tahira Kanhar, he told police.
The deceased Tahira was a former ward member of Salaguda Gram Panchayat.
The police have arrested 10 people in this connection, the SP added.
PTI
