Berhampur, May 6: In a gruesome incident, miscreants Wednesday shot dead two youths from Bihar in broad daylight near Lanjipalli overbridge in Baidyanathpur area here. The deceased were identified as Rajesh Kumar and Lalu Kumar Yadav of Munger district.
The assailants managed to flee in an autorickshaw and a bike that was snatched from a passerby, while onlookers remained stunned or ran around and could do nothing. Police rushed to the spot and took possession of the bodies. The duo was shot at from point-blank range. No details are available of the dead.
Police seized an autorickshaw, four bags, a purse containing Rs6,972, some gold ornaments, a laptop carry-bag, a blank cartridge and a mobile phone from the spot. This apart, two live bullets were recovered from the shirt pocket of one of the dead.
The entry-exit points of the city have been blocked so as to help arrest the assailants, police said.
According to police sources, about nine youths from Bihar hired two auto rickshaws from Chhatrapur railway station to go up to Kamapalli. They paid Rs300 each to the drivers. While four of them got into the first autorickshaw, five others boarded the second. Both the vehicles stopped just before the over bridge. Thereafter, sounds of gunshot were heard twice in a few seconds’ interval.
While people in the area ran helter skelter following the firing, some of the assailants fled the scene in one of the two autorickshaws. A few minutes later, three other youths snatched the bike of CH Naresh Patra of Lanjipalli Brahmansahi at gunpoint and drove it away.
Police sent both the bodies to MKCG Medical College and Hospital here for post mortem. The zips of the four bags were found open and police suspect the assailants might have decamped with the contents.
After a while, D Mohan Rao and S Gopal Reddy, the drivers of two autorickshaws, reported themselves to Baidyanathpur police station. Police detained Naresh Patra, whose bike was snatched, along with the drivers, for interrogation.
Police suspect the youths to be a gang of trained looters as they were carrying pistols and gold ornaments with them. The group boarded the Bangalore-bound Prashanti Express from Bhubaneswar and got down at Chhatrapur, police said, adding the killing might be a fallout of a dispute over distribution of looted items. Past records of train looters as well as records of arrested criminals from Bihar were being verified, police said.
Three police teams began raiding the criminal hideouts in the city. Berhampur SP Sarthak Sarangi and ASP Shasibhusan Satpathy led the investigations.
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