By Express News Service
PARADIP/BHUBANESWAR: The Special Task Force (STF) of Crime Branch on Saturday arrested Jyotikant Parida alias Bapu for his alleged links with notorious gangster Sheik Usman Ali alias Tito.
Bapu was arrested following a complaint by one Jitendra Swain lodged with the STF alleging that Parida and his associates demanded extortion and threatened him at gun-point. As many as 28 cases have been registered against Bapu in the past, including two cases at Kujang police station, one at Chauliaganj police station in Cuttack, and the rest at Paradip police station.
Bapu, a close associate of Tito, was involved in murder cases, attempt to murder, cases under the Arms Act, extortion, dacoity, robbery, abduction and kidnapping.A case has been registered against him under Sections 120 (B), 387, 506 and 34 of IPC along with Sections 25 and 27 of the Arms Act. He was produced in a court in Kujang on Saturday.
Apparently, Bapu was allegedly close to some BJD leaders of Jagatsinghpur district and had helped them with logistics in organising rallies for the ruling party.Sources said Tito and Bapu ran a sand mining mafia in the entire district and had quarries in Allipingal, Naugaon, Erada, Balipada, Raghunathpur, Tarapur and Tirtol under their control. The gangster was also involved in tender fixing in projects related to PWD, Rural Development and Water Resources department.
4 cases filed against Tito
Kendrapara: Four murder cases were filed by Kendrapara police against Tito on Saturday. During interrogation, Tito had confessed before STF that he had gunned down an engineer, Debashish Sahoo, on December 21 last year at Chakada village under Kendrapara town police limits after the latter refused to pay him an extortion of `10 lakh. Two years back, a contractor, Kedar Swain, was also gunned down at Shyamasundarpur village under Kendrapara Sadar police limits by Tito and his associates as he refused to pay `5 lakh to them. Prior to that, he had killed contractors Rajkishore Behera and Aswajit Sahoo over refusal to pay extortion money.
Police have booked him under Sections 302, 341 and 12B of IPC and Sections 25 and 27 of Arms Act. The gangster was produced in SDJM court here which remanded him in judicial custody.On the other hand, Vigilance sleuths have found out that some Government officials of the district have shown undue favour to Tito causing revenue loss to the State Government.
