Cuttack court acquits Dhalasamanta brothers in twin murder case

Cuttack: In a dramatic turn of events, the sessions court in Cuttack on Thursday acquitted gangster siblings — Sushanta Kumar Dhalasamanta (52) and Sushil Kumar Dhalasamanta (48) — along with six others in the 2013 twin murder of their former associates, Manoj Mallick and Omprakash Swain.The judgment, delivered by sessions judge Sitikantha Samal, said the prosecution failed to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the two victims were murdered by the accused. "This court holds that the prosecution cannot establish that Dipu alias Manoj Kumar Mallick and Omm alias Omprakash Swain are dead and their death is homicidal in nature beyond reasonable doubts," the court observed. Despite acquittal in the murder case, legal troubles for the Dhalasamanta brothers are not over, with other criminal cases pending against them.Senior advocate Saura Chandra Mohapatra represented the siblings, while special public prosecutor D P Das led the prosecution.The Dhalasamanta brothers were arrested on Jan 29, 2016. Police had claimed in their 2016 chargesheets that the duo abducted their associates from their Cuttack homes, tortured and killed them at a farmhouse near Athagarh, and then transported the bodies to Jharkhand, where they were burnt to destroy evidence.While two burnt bodies were recovered by Jharkhand police from West Singbhum district in Nov 2013, the remains could not be conclusively identified. The prosecution relied heavily on circumstantial evidence, but the court ruled the chain of evidence was incomplete and did not conclusively prove the charges of abduction and murder.Six other accused — Debasis Kar (47), Suvendu Das (35), Arif Khan (40), Debashis Sahoo (34), Bharat Behera (34) and Debadutta Das (35) — were also acquitted. Two other accused, Bholanath Bhagat and Bhajana alias Sanjaya Kumar Sahoo, died during the pendency of the trial, in 2021 and 2022, respectively.However, the court found the Dhalasamanta brothers guilty under the Arms Act for unauthorised possession of deadly and prohibited firearms. The court sentenced them to seven years of rigorous imprisonment and imposed fine of Rs 10,000 each.