Bhubaneswar/Baripada: Odisha Crime Branch Saturday claimed to have cracked an over two-year-old murder case in which the police had found a pair of slippers of different sizes, along with a body which was too decomposed to be identified, a senior officer said.
The body was recovered from an abandoned well inside a jungle in Mayurbhanj district in November 2023.
After the DNA of the deceased matched that of his son who lives in Kerala, the body was identified, and the Crime Branch July 2 arrested three individuals, including a minor, on the charge of murdering the man, Crime Branch Director General Vinaytosh Mishra told reporters.
The man was murdered in October 2023 by the three on suspicion of practising witchcraft and being responsible for the death of a child in their village.
“Apart from a pair of slippers of different sizes, nothing was found as evidence. The body was not identified as it was highly decomposed, having remained immersed in water for a long time. It was completely a blind case,” Crime Branch DG Vinaytosh Mishra told reporters Saturday.
Finding no immediate leads, suspects, or witnesses, the police collected DNA samples of the deceased and tried to match them with family members of several missing persons. However, that exercise did not yield any positive results.
The investigation was later handed over to the Crime Branch.
Finally, Mishra said, when a man came to enquire about his missing father last month, the DNA samples matched with the deceased who was identified as Juburaj Singh.
The son, Biswanath Singh, also confirmed that his father who lived alone in his village used to wear a pair of slippers of different sizes, the Crime Branch DG said.
Biswanath also recognised the recovered slippers to be those of his father’s.
He had come to Odisha after his father disappeared, lodged a missing persons case and returned to Kerala. When the body was found, the news somehow did not reach him there.
The Crime Branch said that investigations revealed that Juburaj was invited by villagers of Banasahi to perform an exorcism ritual, during which he attended a feast.
A group of people killed him, placed the body in a gunny bag and dumped it in an abandoned well in a cashew jungle.
While two arrested men were sent to jail Friday, the minor was sent to a home, the police said.
PTI