Brahmapur: The high-profile Pitabas Panda murder case in Odisha took a dramatic turn with police dropping direct murder charges against former MLA Bikram Panda and 13 other accused in the final chargesheet.
However, the former legislator has been identified by the police as the principal conspirator in the sensational case, altering the legal framework under which the accused will be prosecuted.
Following the reported modifications, Bikram Panda has now been booked under Section 111 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) without direct involvement in the murder of the senior advocate. This pertains to criminal conspiracy as part of an organised crime.
Besides the former MLA, the direct murder charge was also dropped against former Mayor Pintu, alias Shibashankar Das, as well as Malaya Bisoi and Madan Dalei.
Sources said the core murder charge under Section 103 of the BNS has been retained solely against the two alleged shooters, Kurupati Bhuyan and Chintu Pradhan.
Legal experts are of the view that the modifications of charges indicates that the officials revised their strategy after failing to obtain concrete and explicit evidence linking the political figures directly to the execution of the murder.
During preliminary investigation, police had termed Bikram Panda and 15 others as conspirators. Among them Bikram Panda and Pintu Das were coined main conspirators in the case.
In the supplementary charge sheet, the police have filed a case under BNS Section 111 for organised crime revising from Section 61, over not being able to find enough evidences.
Police made it clear that while conspiracy charges remain strong against Panda and others, direct murder charges are limited to those who executed the crime.
