First chargesheet filed in Laxmanananda murder case

The CID of the Orissa police submitted its first chargesheet against seven people arrested in the Laxmanananda Saraswati murder case.

Five months after senior VHP leader Laxmanananda Saraswati was killed along with four of his associates by a group of 40-odd assailants in his ashram at Jalespeta in Kandhamal district of Orissa,the Criminal Investigation Department of the Orissa police on Friday submitted its first chargesheet against seven people arrested in the case.

The agency filed the 270-page chargesheet against Duryodhan Sunamajhi,Munda Badamajhi,Sanatana Badamajhi,Bijay Sanseth,Gananath Chalanseth,Bhaskar Sunamajhi,Budhdev Naik in the court of Sub-divisional Judicial Magistrate Dolagobinda Barik on Friday afternoon. All of them have been charged under sections 302,449,380,120(B) and 34 of the Indian Penal Code and sections 25 and 27 of the Arms Act,said investigating officer S K Patnaik.

Among the seven arrested,Naik is a hardcore and others are active sympathisers of the Left-wing extremists.

The CID team,headed by SP Yatindra Koyal was handed over the case on August 28,five days after the killing.

Saraswati,82,was celebrating Janmasthami along with his associates and inmates of the Shankaracharya Kanyashram at Jalespeta on August 23 evening when masked assailants armed with AK-47 and sharp weapons sprayed him with bullets. Not satisfied with his gory death,they hacked his right leg and rained blows on his torso. Three of his associates — Kishore baba (45),Amritananda baba (62),Mata Bhaktimayee (40) — and Puranjan Ganthi (28),brother of one of the girl inmates of the tribal residential school,fell to the bullets of the assailants.

CID officials said that the agency has only filed a preliminary charge sheet and the investigation is still open. “We have already arrested seven persons. Considering that 40-odd people were involved in the killing and a few others were conspirators,we have to arrest some more. We are on the right track and would soon reach the conspirator. Then,we would submit the supplementary chargesheets,” said a CID official involved with the probe.

On Thursday,the agency had filed the preliminary chargesheet in the rape case of a 29-year-old Catholic nun,who was sexually assaulted by a mob on August 25 last year,in the riot that followed Laxmanananda’s killing.

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