A local BJP leader was brutally bludgeoned to death allegedly by an intoxicated youth following a fierce verbal clash in Odisha’s Kendrapara district, police said on Wednesday.
The fatal confrontation unfolded late Tuesday night at Ramnagar village under the Jamboo Marine police station limits.
The deceased has been identified as Tapan Das (51), police said.
According to police, the prime suspect, 26-year-old Sanjay Mandal, who works as a mason in the same neighborhood, was heavily under the influence of alcohol when he picked a sudden dispute with Das.
The verbal altercation quickly turned into physical violence, during which Mandal allegedly grabbed a heavy wooden plank and struck Das repeatedly. Das suffered severe injuries and collapsed dead on the spot, police stated.
Following the incident, alert villagers rushed to the scene, managed to overpower the fleeing suspect, and handed him over to police. The bloodstained wooden plank used as the murder weapon was also recovered and logged into evidence.
The body of the deceased was sent to the District Headquarters Hospital in Kendrapara for post-mortem examination.
A murder case has been registered, and a thorough probe has been initiated to ascertain the exact reason behind the sudden homicide and map the exact sequence of events that culminated in the tragedy, stated Anita Swain, inspector-in-charge of the Jamboo Marine police station.
