Autopsy Confirms Murder Of GCF Manager From Odisha

Bhopal/Jagatsinghpur: The postmortem report of Sarada Charan Khatua, the junior works manager of Gun Carriage Factory (GCF) in Jabalpur and a native of Kokilapur village of Odisha’s Jagatsingpur district, has revealed that he was hacked to death.

The decomposed body of Khatua, who went missing on January 17, was found in a deserted area of the city on Tuesday evening while the postmortem was conducted on Wednesday.

Informing the media, Jabalpur SP Amit Singh said the police will register a murder case.

Khatua had gone missing a week after he was interrogated by the CBI in connection with the alleged supply and use of Chinese parts in indigenized Bofors guns.

He was said to be in possession of some important information related to the case, said sources.

In June 2017, CBI had lodged an FIR against a Delhi-based company and ‘unknown’ officers of GCF, Jabalpur following a tip-off that China-made parts were masked as ‘made in Germany’ and supplied to the factory for Bofors.

The GCF officials claimed that the inquiry was a result of a dispute between foreign partners of the company that got the contract from it.

The CBI said that the German company does not manufacture these parts. Investigators suspect the Delhi-based company got six bearings manufactured by Sino United Industries (Luyang) Ltd Henan, China. The agency had seized emails exchanged between the Indian and Chinese companies.

The CBI FIR alleges that the supplier connived with GCF officials to supply duplicate spare parts (bearings) used in the manufacture of 155mm Dhanush guns — indigenized version of Bofors artillery guns that turned the tide of the 1999 Kargil conflict.

While Khatua’s wife, Mousumi, is in a state of shock, her brother Manas Behera, a Supreme Court advocate, claimed that his brother-in-law has been murdered by the kingpin of the syndicate.

Sarada’s brother Rajan, who is also an employee of GCF, said that the traitors have murdered his brother as he was cooperating with the CBI probe and was going to share some classified documents.

He also informed that a GCF officer had called his wife asking for email ID and password on behalf of the CBI. “His number is also switched off,” he said.

Meanwhile, a delegation of GCF employees association met state minister Lakhan Ghangoria and demanded action against police officers, alleging lethargic investigation into the missing person complaint.