A Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Court in Bhubaneswar on Sunday allowed the Commissionerate Police to take the three accused involved in the alleged murder of the Manish Anurag Das on a four-day remand.
The Infocity Police had produced the three accused- Amrit Pritam Biswal, Dinesh Mohapatra and Mrutyunjay Mishra before the court today and had sought five–day custody of the accused.
The trio was arrested on Saturday on the charges of murder of Manish, son of senior journalist Navin Das, whose body was recovered from a pond at Patrapada on October 10, 2021.
Also Read
The development assumes significance as the mobile phone of deceased Manish is yet to be recovered. Besides, several other aspects including role of women, who were seen in CCTV footage, in the crime are yet to be established.
Earlier on Saturday, Bhubaneswar DCP Umashankar Dash revealed that Manish was killed over a hotel bill payment dispute.
“The investigation has revealed that there was a dispute over payment of bill between Manish and the three accused in the hotel. The trio later attacked Manish outside the hostel killing him in the process,” he said.
According to police, all the three accused along with the deceased Manish had gone to the hotel after visiting a place at Laxmisagar area on October 9 (Saturday night). Later, they attacked Manish following a dispute over hotel bill payment. The accused had later dumped Manish’s body in a pond in the vicinity with an intention to destroy evidence.
“With a motive to destroy the evidence, the accused disposed Manish’s body in the pond. The mobile phone of Manish is yet to be recovered. As there were no external injury marks on the body, as revealed by the inquest report and post mortem, it is suspected that Manish died during the scuffle and fracases with his friend,” Dash added.