Pragyan Saswati Priyadarshani file photo
Sagar
Post News network
Bhubaneswar, June 19: Close to four months have passed since the body of a Ravenshaw University student was found on a railway track but police are yet to solve the case.
This has raised eyebrows as the Government Railway Police (GRP) has ruled out the involvement of the only person who was in constant touch with the deceased till shortly before her death, according to call records. Several statements made by members of the girl’s family, who say this is a case of murder, are also surprising as they are contrary to the police report.
The body of Pragyan Saswati Priyadarshani alias Mama, a Plus II Arts student, was found on the tracks near Kuhudi railway station 10 km from her native Gangadharpur village in Khurda, February 27.
There was no external injury except on the back of the head when she was found lying on her stomach on the track. Her clothes were also not torn. “It seemed as if someone had placed the body there after killing her,” said Priyadarshani’s brother Smurtiranjan Sahoo.
Prime suspect Santanu Sahoo, a fellow villager and a labourer, was interrogated by GRP March 16 when the Orissa Human Rights Commission (OHRC) took cognizance of the incident. However, the GRP did not arrest him as only a case of unnatural death was filed by the Railways. Priyadarshani’s family members said they had wanted to lodge a murder case against Sahoo but the police did not register it.
“Sahoo was interrogated only to determine the sequence of events leading to Priyadarshani’s death and his involvement as alleged by the deceased’s family,” said GRP SP Sanjay Kaushal. “Till date, there is no evidence of the deceased being killed. No evidence was found about Sahoo’s involvement in the case,” said the SP in a report submitted to OHRC May 23.
There are many points of conflict between the version of the family members and that of the police.
Priyadarshani’s parents claim that she had spurned Sahoo’s proposals. However, the police report said the two had an affair for at least two years. The report also noted that the day before she left home for college, Priyadarshani’s mother had reprimanded her for talking to Sahoo. This was confirmed by Smrutiranjan. “My mother was against their love affair,” he said.
Priyadarshani left home with Smrutiranjan February 26 to catch the 7 am DMU to Bhubaneswar. Phone records obtained by GRP revealed she had informed Sahoo about her plans through SMS the previous evening. Sahoo boarded the train Priyadarshani was travelling in February 25 and the two had breakfast together on board, according to the police report.
However, Sahoo got enraged on finding another mobile with Priyadarshani. He suspected that she was having an affair with someone else, his friends told the police.
Sahoo and his friends alighted at Lingaraj station to go to the construction site near Tamando where they worked while Priyadarshani continued till Bhubaneswar to go to her college. The police report said Priyadarshani reached Bhubaneswar at 11 am and was loitering on the platform. She also bought a ticket.
“Call records show Priyadarshani called up Sahoo at 10:41 am, 2.26 pm and 2:33 pm. Santanu also called her up at 9:52 am, 9:54 am, 10:08 am and 10:23 am. Priyadarshani locations were shown as Ashok Nagar, Laxmisagar and Kalinga Auto Nagar in the city, while Sahoo’s location was shown to be the Tamando locality,” the report noted.
At 2:48 pm, Priyadarshani told college friend Suvankar Pradhan that she was still in her village and would join college later, the police report said. Smrutiranjan contended that Sahoo had discovered that his sister was in love with Pradhan, with whom she had spoken for 18 minutes, and thus might have killed her.
Priyadarshani even called home at 8.27 pm and told her mother that she had attended class in the evening, though call records showed her location to be Kuhudi railway station.
At 11:57 pm, Priyadarshani reportedly sent an SMS to Sahoo: “I couldn’t go to Cuttack as you were angry. I came back to Kuhudi on the first passenger train.”
Nothing more is known about their locations from this time till 6 am the next day — the period in which she died. Kaushal said locations can only be tracked when a call is answered, implying that there was no communication over phone since then between the two. The report is also silent on how Priyadarshani spent the day in Bhubaneswar February 26.
“To learn what happened between midnight and 6 am, we made Sahoo undergo a lie detector test but it yielded nothing,” Kaushal said.
Curiously, the police made no effort to ascertain the involvement of any other person in the case or the reason behind her decision to go back towards her village. “Only the person who had died can tell you what was going on in her mind,” Kaushal said.
The post mortem report ruled out sexual assault. “No spermatozoa were found on her body. Death was caused due to carnio-cerebral injuries and their complications,” it said.
Smrutiranjan said Sahoo’s friends Tinka and Tuna were not present in the village that night and had told their families they were going to attend a marriage in Tangi. “I don’t know where Sahoo was but his friends were not here,” he said.
The police report noted that Sahoo and his friends were the first people from Gangadharpur village to reach Kuhudi to see the body. “After some time, he gave a villager the contact number of Priyadarshani’s family and asked him to inform them. He then left the spot with his friends,” the report said.