Bhubaneswar: Senior leader Anup Sai himself planned and executed the twin murders of a 35-year-old woman and her 14-year-old daughter in the forests of Raigarh in Chhattisgarh, bordering Jharsuguda district in May 2016, informed Raigarh SP Santosh Singh in a press conference in Raigarh on Friday.
Singh said Sai had a live-in relationship with the woman from 2011-16 and when she insisted marriage and asked money, the three-time MLA from Brajarajnagar decided to kill both, said Singh.
Singh said that the former BJD leader has confessed to planning and executing the murder of Kalpana Dash (35) and her 14-year-old daughter Pravati.
Sai had an affair with the woman after the latter got divorced from her husband in 2005. They were staying together from 2011 to 2016 in a flat in Sunderpada area in Bhubaneswar. Kalpana had a daughter from her previous husband, police said.
“In his confession, Sai said that the woman was insisting on marriage. Both mother and daughter were killed in cold blood with a sharp-edged weapon and later they were crushed by a vehicle to give it a shape of death due to an accident. Sai took the help of one of his trusted drivers to execute the murder,” added SP SIngh.
During investigation, police found some clues in 2018 that indicated Sai was a close acquaintance of Kalpana.
Singh said though the former lawmaker was summoned several times by Chakradhar Nagar police but he didn’t respond to any of them and even used his political clout to avoid police probe.
Sai killed the woman and her daughter and ran a vehicle over them several times to destroy evidence and also to give the deaths occurred due to accident,” said the SP.
On Wednesday night, the Chakradhar Nagar police picked up Sai for interrogation in connection with the double murder case for interrogation.
Notably, the mutilated bodies of a woman and young girl were found in the forests of Raigarhin on May 7, 2016. Their faces were crushed beyond recognition in a bid to destroy evidence. It took eight months for the police to identify them as Kalpana and her daughter Pravati, residents of Brajarajnagar.
Sai represented Brajarajnagar Assembly constituency thrice on Congress ticket from 2000 to 2014. He switched to Naveen Patnaik-led BJD in 2014 but lost the election and was denied a ticket in 2019. In August 2019, he was made the Chairperson of Odisha State Warehousing Corporation, a State-owned public sector undertaking. Meanwhile, he was expelled from BJD and also removed as the Chairperson of the State-owned PSU.
He has been arrested under IPC Sections 302 (Murder), 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence) and 120B (Criminal conspiracy).
