Mayurbhanj Police Cracks Mystery Surrounding Half-Charred Body, Two Detained

The Mayurbhanj police on Tuesday claimed to have cracked the mystery surrounding some partially-burnt flesh and skeletal remains which had been found in a forest near Badasialinai village under Jashipur block on March 24.

Senior police officials said that the body remains belonged to Aditya Swain of Ranki village in Keonjhar district who had gone missing on March 22.

Investigation so far suggests that he had been murdered in a planned way. Two persons, who have been detained in connection with the murder, were identified as Bablu Padhi and Saurabh Palai, police said.

Earlier, it was alleged that Aditya had left home with a youth, identified as Chintu, on the fateful day. Police said Chintu had handed over Aditya to Bablu and Saurabh for the purpose of taking him to a de-addiction centre in Baripada.

Bablu and Saurabh, police said, had beaten Aditya to death when they were on their way to Baripada in a SUV. Later, they took Aditya’s body to an isolated place in the forest and burnt it using tyres. It is suspected that Aditya was murdered following some disputes on way to the de-addition centre.

However, the exact motive behind the murder is still unclear. The family members of the deceased suspect that Aditya might have been murdered for the purpose of trafficking his organs.

“It was a challenging case as initially it was very difficult to ascertain whether the remains were of any human or animal. We had sent the body samples for detailed examination to Baripada and based on the findings, we registered a murder case,” said the SDPO, Karanjia.

The senior official said that during spot verification it was found that discarded tyres were used to dispose the body by burning it.

“As we had recovered a burnt mobile phone from the spot, we intensified our investigation by registering a murder case as per the instructions of the Mayurbhanj SP,” the SDPO added.