Kamakhyanagar: Tension ran high in Kamakhyanagar in Odisha’s Dhenkanal district after district BJD youth president Jasobant Parida was shot dead by unidentified miscreants in broad daylight on Monday.
Sources said the incident took place this morning while Parida was on the way from Dhenkanal in his Indigo car to oversee work at his under-construction house at Anantapur in Kamakhyanagar, where he also owns a medicine shop.
He was reportedly followed by four unidentified persons in a Bolero jeep from Gandhi Mandir. They opened fire and hurled 7 to 8 country bombs at his car. Terrified, Parida got down from his car and tried to escape the volleys. However, one of the bullets hit Parida on the head and he fell down on the road, following which the miscreants fled the area.
Hearing the gunshot, locals ran to the spot and rushed Parida to Kamakhyanagar Sub-Divisional Hospital. Though the doctor there declared him as received dead, the locals shifted him to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack hoping that he was still alive. They, however, returned to Kamakhyanagar as the doctors who were accompanying Parida insisted that he was already dead.
The incident took place between 9.55 am and 10 am, sources added.
Talking to mediapersons, Dr Digambara Sahu, a senior doctor of Kamakhyanagar Sub-Divisional Hospital, confirmed that Parida died after a bullet hit him on the head. The post-mortem will reveal whether he was hit by one or more bullets, he added.
As news of his death began to spread, irate locals staged a road blockade at Anantpur on NH-53 demanding immediate arrest of the assailants. Till reports last came in, vehicular traffic had come to a grinding halt due to the blockade.
Eyewitnesses said that after committing the crime, the miscreants took the Rengali Canal Road via Anantpur.
Talking to media over phone, Dhenkanal SP Santosh Nayak said preliminary investigation revealed that it was a pre-planned murder. “The assailants launched an all-out attack to ensure that Parida was killed this time,” he said.
The SP further said all the entry and exit points of Kamakhyanagar have been sealed and a manhunt launched to track down the assailants.
It may be mentioned that a similar attack on Parida had taken place in 2014 in which he had sustained bullet injuries in his stomach. He was rushed to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, where he subsequently recovered.
“Taking the previous case into consideration, we suspect that the same miscreants are involved in today’s incident,” Nayak pointed out.
Till reports last came in, police found the deserted Bolero jeep in which the assailants had come and shot Parida, about 7 km from Kamakhyanagar.
According to police, the assailants fled the area either on a bike or a four-wheeler after leaving the jeep behind.
Meanwhile, two senior BJD leaders—Steel and Mines and Works Minister Prafulla Mallick and Commerce and Transport Minister Nrusingha Charan Sahu—apprised Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of the shocking incident in Bhubaneswar and urged him to order a thorough investigation into it.
The Chief Minister, while expressing profound grief and shock over the incident, asked the two minister to rush to Kamakhyanagar.
