Bhubaneswar: Rourkela police have cracked the murder of a tea vendor in the city with the arrest of five persons, including a juvenile.
The 26-year-old tea vendor, Avinash Yadav, was stabbed to death on Friday night in a street near the Rourkela railway station. The accused have been identified as Mohit Bajar, Subham Paswan, Sidhu Tanti and Rajveer Ram. Five mobile phones, two four-wheelers and a dragger have been seized from them.
Speaking to the media on Sunday, Roukela SP Nitesh Wadhwani revealed that for the first four hours, the police had
no leads on the accused. He commended the team for identifying the perpetrator over the next eight hours, leading to the arrest of all five individuals within the following eight hours. “Three among them had gone to the spot and stabbed him while the other two helped them to escape,” he said.
Police analysed CCTV footage to ascertain the sequence of events and identify the attackers.
The SP attributed the murder to past enmity. “All the accused have previous criminal records. They knew each other from their time in jail. They had an argument over a trivial issue about six month ago and again a month back. The dispute escalated and ultimately resulted in the murder,” he added.
Yadav, a resident of Gopabandhupali slum, ran a tea stall at the parking lot near Amar Bhawan. He was attacked by three assailants while returning to his stall from a public toilet at around 9.20 pm. He sustained three to four deep wounds and died on the spot.