Cuttack: Amid reports that the Odisha Crime Branch (CB) would bring the prime accused in the sensational Manas Swain murder case, Sarmistha Rout, and alleged co-conspirator and retired OIS officer Niranjan Sethi face-to-face during interrogation on Wednesday, the SCB Medical College and Hospital here released the postmortem report of the cameraman.
According to the report, three bones of Manas’s rib cage were broken after supposedly being hit by an iron rod. He also suffered a spinal cord injury and died due to excessive bleeding. It was also learnt that he was not given food for a long time, sources said.
Notably, police had seized three heavy wooden sticks from the crime spot. It was earlier alleged that both Sarmistha and Sethi along with other accused had hit Manas at the old age home, where he was kept after being kidnapped on February 7.
On the first day after taking the four accused on five-day remand, the CB had grilled them for seven hours. Four teams of 16 people have been formed to interrogate the four accused.
The case had taken a shocking twist with the arrest of Sethi, who allegedly monitored the entire crime, on March 21. Finally, Sarmistha, editor of Bhubaneswar-based web-channel Sampurna, and her associate were nabbed by a joint team of Bhadrak police and CB from Nalanga area in Bhadrak district on Monday while they were travelling in a bus from Kolkata.
The 28-year-old cameraman was allegedly beaten to death at an old age home in Bhubaneswar after being kidnapped from Bhadrak and his body was disposed of in Nayagarh district. Police exhumed the body on March 12, more than a month after he disappeared, following the arrest of three kidnappers, who claimed to have committed the crime at the behest of Sarmistha.
Manas had worked as a cameraman with her web channel for about six months before quitting the job in January after a fall-out with her. The crime was reportedly committed over a memory chip containing objectionable video and photos that could have landed Sarmistha in trouble.
She reportedly told police that there were wedding videos in the memory chip.
Also Read: Associate Of Slain Cameraman Manas Reveals Content Of Memory Chip
