Former Berhampur MLA and Biju Janata Dal Ganjam district president Bikram Panda has been arrested in connection with the murder of Bharatiya Janata Party leader and lawyer Pitabash Panda, police said Wednesday. The arrest has sparked protests from his supporters.
Pitabash, a member of the Odisha Bar Council, was shot dead by two motorcycle-borne assailants near his Berhampur residence late on October 6. The killing sparked widespread anger over the law-and-order situation in the state.
Panda was arrested from his Gajapatinagar residence late Tuesday night on charges of criminal conspiracy. He, along with former Berhampur mayor Siba Shankar Das, a former corporator, and nine others, was produced before a local court in Berhampur.
Four, including the assailants, are stated to be on the run. Police suspect that personal rivalry, political ambition and business losses were behind the killing and cite a financial transaction between the former MLA and the victim.
The weapon used in the crime has also been recovered from a beach near the Ganjam-Puri border, police said.
Supporters of Panda and senior BJD leaders in Ganjam gheraoed the SP’s office, calling the arrest a “political vendetta”. Heavy police deployment has been made across Berhampur to prevent any untoward incident.
Berhampur SP Saravana Vivek M is expected to brief the media soon on details of the case.
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The case has also posed a challenge for the BJP government in Odisha, with the Bar Council of India (BCI) demanding that a special investigation team (SIT) be constituted to probe the case in a time-bound manner. Lawyers across the state have observed a pen-down strike.
Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi earlier assured “exemplary punishment” for those found guilty.
Panda, who began his political career with the Congress, joined the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in April 2018 along with former Union minister Chandra Sekhar Sahu and others. He had contested the Assembly polls from Berhampur on a Congress ticket in 2000, 2004, 2009 and 2014, losing each time, before winning the seat in 2019 as a BJD candidate. In 2024, he contested from the nearby Gopalpur segment but lost to BJP’s Bibhuti Bhusan Jena.
The former MLA and the deceased lawyer were known to be close friends in Berhampur until Panda joined BJD in 2018.
