The role of Khirod Chandra Mallick, an NGO activist and brother of former minister Pramila Mallick, in connection with a firing incident in the city is under the scanner with police suspecting his involvement in the case.
Mallick, founder of an NGO, came under police glare after his driver Biswanath Pradhan, who was earlier arrested in the shooting incident, told police that he had engineered the gun attack on Namita Padhi. The girl, who works in a BPO, was injured after being shot at in Mancheswar industrial area here on April 13.
“Pradhan said he was mobilized by Mallick to eliminate the girl, who used to work in his NGO earlier. The exact cause of Mallick’s grudge against the girl is not known,” inspector-in-charge of Mancheswar police station, Priyaranjan Satpathy told TOI. “Neither the driver nor the victim’s family could tell us the motive behind the attack. We suspect she was targeted because of some monetary dispute,” he added.
“Since Mallick is a suspect, we raided his offices in Sambalpur and Delhi, but could not find him,” Satpathy said. Police recently came under fire for allegedly attempting to protect Mallick.
However, Mallick’s lawyer Dharanidhar Nayak said, “My client has nothing to do with the attack on the girl. The Orissa High Court on Tuesday heard his anticipatory bail application and asked him to move the sub-divisional judicial magistrate, Bhubaneswar, within four weeks.” Police on April 20 arrested three men in connection with the attack on Padhi outside her office.
