Puri: Krushnaprasad police in Puri district on Sunday arrested Shreekhetra Samanta Singhar following a complaint filed by his wife and popular Jatra artiste of Odisha, Sonali Panda.
He was apprehended near Forest Park in Bhubaneswar last night.
In her complaint, Sonali had levelled serious allegations, accusing Shreekhetra of raping her when she was a minor (17 years old), blackmailing her, and later forcing her into marriage. She further alleged that Shreekhetra had made all arrangements for Panda to join as an artiste in Jatra troupe ‘Tulasi Gananatya’ a few days
after she delivered a baby and later abandoned her.
Meanwhile, Shreekhetra’s father Dilip Kumar Dalei rubbished the allegations as completely false and baseless. “He has been wrongly arrested. Our family was surviving on his earnings. I have a wife who is differently abled, and Shreekhetra has a young child. This is a grave injustice to our family. I sincerely request the government to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into the matter. If my claims are found to be false, my son should be sent to jail,” he told reporters.