KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, Feb 11: The body of a 55-year-old man was found in a bag inside the dickey of a car near DBMS School under Kadma thana area on Friday morning.
The body which was identified as that of Dharmendra Singh, a resident of Line No 4 at Kashidih in Sakchi, was tied with wire and stuffed in a cricket kitbag.
While recovering the body-bag, the police nabbed a middle-aged man identified as Vishwajit Pradhan.
The police have seized the car while recovering the body and are interrogating Pradhan, who is a Tata Steel employee at the Sakchi thana.
Dharmendra was murdered on being hit with a cricket bat by Pradhan sometime during the night and later on, the assailant had made a bid to get the body disposed of by stuffing it in the cricket kitbag.
Senior SP M Tamil Vanan who visited the Sakchi thana to get an update about the ongoing investigation said the murder victim would do money-lending business and had acquaintance with Pradhan for the past 10 years or so.
“Dharmendra had left his home at about 11 am on Thursday, having received a call from someone who asked him to pay Rs 50 lakhs as ‘rangdari’. When he did not return home till evening, his anxious family informed the Sakchi police about the extortion call and the disappearance of the victim. Only after getting the complaint, the police had put the mobile phone number of the caller on surveillance, and subsequently set up checking for random searches in every suspicious car across the city, ” said Vanan while talking to the newsmen.
The senior SP said that during the checking drive which continued from midnight, a car was intercepted by the Kadma thana OC Manoj Kumar Thakur at about 4 am today and the body of Dharmendra Singh was recovered.
The senior police officer pointed out that as the assailant is changing his statement time and again, the real reason behind the murder is yet to be ascertained. He said the place where the murder was committed is also not established yet, adding that they suspect there must be another person involved in the murder.
