Cuttack: A life convict, who was absconding for more than nine years after jumping parole from the Circle Jail at Choudwar in Odisha’s Kataka district, has been arrested from Punjab.
The accused, identified as Sajit Khan, was convicted in the sensational 2008 Jagatpur murder case involving the brutal killing of Mili alias Nirmala Sahoo of Bhairpur village under Jagatpur police limits. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Fast Track Court in Cuttack in 2010.
Sajit was granted 14 days’ furlough from March 7 to March 20, 2017, with directions to surrender on March 21. However, he failed to return to the jail and remained on the run for over nine years.
A case was registered at Jagatpur police station in December 2025 under relevant sections of the IPC and the Prisons Act after jail authorities lodged a complaint. During the investigation, police combined human intelligence with technical surveillance to trace the fugitive. Investigators analysed the communication patterns of his relatives and, with assistance from the Cyber Cell, tracked his movements.
The accused allegedly assumed the identity of “Fayaz Khan”, settled in Amritsar, married locally and earned a living as a bedsheet hawker while evading arrest.
A special police team led by ACP Arun Kumar Swain reached Amritsar, and after two days of field verification, identified and apprehended the convict with assistance from the Amritsar Police Commissionerate. He was produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Amritsar, who granted four days’ transit remand before he was brought back to Odisha.
The arrest was the outcome of sustained interstate operation driven by meticulous investigation, technical surveillance and coordinated field intelligence, a senior police official said.
