10 Years After Killing 3-Yr-Old Daughter & Then Hiding In 7 States, Odisha Man Arrested From Maharashtra

Bhubaneswar: Ten years after allegedly killing his 3-year-old daughter and then hiding in seven states, a man from Odisha’s Keonjhar district has been arrested by the Crime Branch by tracking his PAN card use from Maharashtra.

The accused, identified as Prashant Sahani, had allegedly killed his daughter at Fakirpur village under the jurisdiction of Anandpur police station in August 2013 following family dispute, police said.

Fed up with frequent quarrels with wife, the accused took his daughter out on the pretext of buying her chocolates. However, he allegedly threw her in Baitarani river and fled to Kolkata. Thereafter, he moved to Hyderabad and other places. He kept changing his mobile phone numbers in order to escape police attention.

Soon after the incident, a complaint had been lodged with the police and subsequently the case was handed over to the Crime Branch for investigation.

After hiding in seven states, Prashant went to Thane in Maharashtra and took up a job in a private company. Though the accused had not opened any bank account till 2022, he opened a salary account for which PAN card was used.

The Crime Branch, which was constantly trying to track the accused, got this information and a team was sent to nab Prashant. After being caught in Thane, the accused was taken to Fakirpur where the crime scene was recreated, said Crime Branch Inspector D P Das.