Biranchi murder trail: Cops on the edge

D.N. Singh In a bizzare twist of events, as was feared, judo coach Biranchi Das murder case has slipped into unfathomable mystery. The sequence of revelations, in fact, can make a puzzle out of any probe; And with the name of an Orissa IAS officer tagged along with the suspects` list, the job of the investigators has become harder. The co-accused in the case, Chagla alias Akshya Behera, has maintained his stance that the IAS officer in question, Priyabrat Patnaik, had remained in the background of the cold-blooded killing and was a part of the conspiracy. And the recent confession by Patnaik before the police that he not only knew Raja but had met him at the judo hall of Biranchi on more than one occasion has given further steam to the doubts. The admission about his link with the gangster and the co-accused has raised questions like what Business did a top bureaucrat had with a man of Raja`s reputation? If the issue of Raja and the starlet Leslie- her alleged affection to one of the involved parties being reason of the killing- was anything to go by, then apparently Patnaik was trying to play the big brother’s role in ‘rescuing’ Leslie from the claws of the don. That might have been the reason why Patnaik had assigned the role of a moderator to Biranchi to take on Raja; Biranchi perhaps overstepped his limits. Priyabrat Patnaik has been quizzed but the police was not ready to share with the media all that he had spilled during the interrogation. But the subsequent step taken by the government against the IAS, by stripping him of his duties and reducing him to the state of an `officer without duty `, is no less an indicator at the seriousness of his involvement. Question also remains why was Biranchi killed if not for Leslie. The slain judo coach was in fact an old acquaintance of Raja, who belonged to the same locality of Bhubaneswar, but the strain in their relation might have been an outcome of a design to keep Raja away from the video starlet, who, possibly was equally sought after by the officer. Even if one goes by the version given by the IAS, that it was Leslie`s father who approached him to rescue his daughter from the wrath of Raja, then question arises that why he did not inform the police and chose to become a ‘saint’ in taking on a deadly don. From the day Biranchi was shot dead, the state capital police has been on the edge and keeps buying time, propounding theories after theories. What happened to the theory of scrap-deal feuds, nobody knows ! The police had simply removed a couple of its officers suspected to be involved in that multi-crore racket. Iron scrap-deal is going on in Orissa as nobody`s business with criminal ease and an impartial inquiry can always expose the players and among them very highly placed ones. But it is again the question of moles within ! Suppose, that was one of the reasons which led to the murder, then Biranchi, possibly, was made a sacrificial goat or even he had a finger in that pie or he knew a lot about that nexus. Too many leads and the emerging complexities, it has got the police on the ropes. On one side is Raja Acharya and on the other the fresh clues that point to the mess in which either the police or the officialdom is on the firing line. As regards Raja, now that he has been arrested it`s been hoped that the real picture behind the episode would come to the fore. Moreover, any further delay in the inquiry would have an impact on the political image of Naveen Patnaik whose government will be facing elections in the near future.