The killing of judo coach Biranchi Das and the events that unfolded read like a racy thriller

If there was a genre called Oriya film noir, they wouldn’t have to look for inspiration elsewhere. The events unfolding over the last three months had all the ingredients of a box office potboiler: wannabe glamour girls, an ambitious sports coach, lovelorn lover, backroom business deals involving gangsters and maverick bureaucrats, police officials playing power games, intrigue, murder and then the flood of false trails. That’s the story of sleaze in a state which is making a transition from feudalism to an industrial society without passing through the intervening stages.

On a muggy evening of April 13, Biranchi Das, a judo coach who was catapulted to the national limelight for his talent find in ‘marathon kid’ Budhia Singh, was shot dead from close quarters in front of his Orissa Judo Association hall in Bhubaneswar. The killer, according to some eyewitness accounts, was Raja Acharya, a dreaded gangster who was also a close acquaintance of Biranchi.

Sandeep Acharya alias Raja was madly in love with Leslie Tripathy, an upcoming model and a music video starlet. Raja had, of late, been pestering her to get married to him. Biranchi, a common friend of both, was employed by Leslie and her father to dissuade him from harassing her. This generated friction between Raja and Biranchi and police believed this to be the primary motive.

Only a month earlier, Leslie, the daughter of a reader in English at BJB College, Bhubaneswar, had filed an FIR with the police alleging that Raja was threatening her. Police arrested Raja but had to release him on bail. This was followed by the abduction of Arun Mantri, the brother of Bidusmita, another model, and friend of Leslie—allegedly by Raja. It was believed that Raja, unable to persuade Bidusmita to intervene on his behalf with Leslie, had kidnapped her brother.

Enter a senior bureaucrat of Orissa government, Priyabrata Patnaik.

Priyabrata, also a leading socialite of the city, attempted to play the peacemaker between Raja, Biranchi and Leslie. But his intervention failed. Raja, 34, a gangster with a short fuse, held Biranchi responsible for foiling his love affair and shot him dead. Raja eluded arrest for 22 days.

This provided the media an ideal opportunity to dig up all the lowdown on the dramatis personae, some relevant, some extraneous to the murder case. Stories began to do the rounds about Raja and Biranchi running a protection racket for scrap dealers and realtors. The murder, it was speculated, was over the sharing of spoils. The media also talked of the bitter rivalry for the music video market into which Raja had been trying to break in. The music video market scene had heated up ever since businessmen discovered that it was the easiest way to lure nubile girls seeking easy glamour and celebrity status.

However, matters took an interesting twist when Akhaya Behera alias Chagala, an accomplice of Raja in the killing of Biranchi, appeared on a private TV channel in Bhopal and said Priyabrata had given the supari for killing the judo coach. He said Patnaik had met Raja twice at the Bhubaneswar Club and once each at the judo hall and Raja’s house.

Chagala’s statement was followed by Priyabrata’s explanation to a Bhubaneswar-based channel that he did not know Raja although he was close to Biranchi in his capacity as president of Judo Association. But during interrogation, Priyabrata admitted that he knew Raja through Biranchi and Leslie. An embarrassed state government stripped Priyabrata of all his government posts and asked him to report to the general administration department on a daily basis.

“His behaviour was undesireable,” said Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

Police then widened its dragnet to nab the main suspect, Raja. It kept a strict vigil on the Kendrapada house of BJP leader Bed Prakash Agarwal on a tip off that Raja had holed up in the place.

When police found it difficult to arrest Raja, they declared him a proclaimed offender. But, in an anti-climax to the whole manhunt drama, Raja suddenly surrendered before the Pannaji police in Goa on May 5. Raja was brought to Bhubaneswar and is now on a five-day transit remand.

The Lok Pal who was entrusted with the inquiry decided to probe the allegations of criminal-police nexus that was corroborated by police commissioner Binoya Kumar Behera himself. This led to an overhaul of the top police setup. Ironically, Behera had not foreseen that he himself would be accused of knowing Raja a few days later and shifted out. Raja, before his arrest, had spoken to an Oriya daily and claimed that he had several meetings with Binoya Behera.

Another theory which is gaining credence is that Raja and Chagla have been making allegations against top state officials to prevent the police from staging encounters to kill them and saving themselves a further embarrassment of uncomfortable revelations.

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