Hans News Service Puri

OdishaPolice on Tuesday arrested a 40-year-old man from Jamshedpur almost two months after he allegedly killed his mother and buried the body in the kitchen floor of their rented house here, an official said. Searching for the accused, police combed Odisha and also visited Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

The woman’s body was recovered on August 24 after the owner of the house in Puri’s Kumbharpada area alerted police about a foul smell from a locked room rented by Gajapati district native Madan Gajanan Dalei (40) and his mother Annapurna, police said.

Dalei was arrested from Jharkhand’s Jamshedpur, where he was working in a shop, Puri SP Prateek Singh said. He said for the past 57 days, Dalei was on the run. He frequently changed his place and rarely used mobile phones. The arrest followed sustained CCTV footage analysis and inputs from local sources, the police officer said.

Explaining the investigation, the SP said that based on the complaint of the house owner in Puri, police opened the locked room and dug up Annapurna’s body from the kitchen floor, which was freshly cemented. Police examined footage from CCTV cameras installed at the rented house and in the surrounding area that showed the accused and his mother leaving the house on August 20 morning and sitting near the Jagannath Temple, apparently seeking alms.

Police also found footage where the accused was seen procuring sand and cement on August 21, providing important clues during the probe, the SP said, adding that the woman might have been killed on August 20 night and that the accused subsequently buried her body in the kitchen. Asked about the motive of the crime, the SP said: “Though he has confessed to the crime, he is yet to reveal the reason behind the incident.”

On the hunt for Dalei, Puri police visited their native place Paralakhemundi and came to know that the accused contacted his sister who lived in Kolkata. They later got a clue regarding his whereabouts in Jamshedpur. By the time police reached the industrial town in Jharkhand, he had fled. Police officials also visited Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, announcing rewards at various places for his capture, the SP said. However, based on recent information, police nabbed Dalei from a snacks shop in Jamshedpur, he added.