Team News Riveting
Jagdalpur, January 4
The Bastar police have nabbed three persons in connection with the brutal killing of journalist Mukesh Chandrakar in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district.
The body of the 32-year-old journalist was discovered Friday evening from a septic tank located in the court-yard of contractor Suresh Chandrakar. Mukesh has reportedly carried a story exposing the irregularities in a road construction project that Suresh’s firm was executing in the district.
Bastar Inspector General of Police Sundarraj P informed media persons that the three accused had been identified as Ritesh Chandrakar, Mahendra Ramteke (Supervisor) and Dinesh Chandrakar. They are being interrogated to recover the weapon used in the incident.
The prime suspect, contractor Suresh Chandrakar is still at large and four police parties have been formed to nab him.
Revealing the sequence of the heinous crime based on the preliminary interrogation of the accused, Sundarraj said journalist Mukesh Chandrakar and one of the accused Ritesh Chandrakar were brothers in relation and used to talk to each other about family and social matters. On the night of the incident on January 1, they had a telephonic conversation at around 8 pm.
Mukesh and Ritesh reached the premises of contractor Suresh Chandrakar at Chattan Para in Bijapur and started having dinner. Both entered into a heated debate after Ritesh accused Mukesh of creating hindrance in the business instead of helping despite having family relations.
The matter took an ugly twist when Ritesh along with his supervisor Mahendra Ramteke present in the premises attacked Mukesh Chandrakar with an iron rod on his head, chest, stomach and back. Mukesh Chandrakar died on the spot following grievous injuries. The accused threw the body in a nearby septic tank and it was closed with a slab lid.
On Thursday morning, Dinesh Chandrakar did the cement flooring of the septic tank afresh that created doubts as a massive hunt was launched to trace Mukesh who went missing from Wednesday night. His elder brother Yukesh Chandrakar had lodged a complaint with the Police Station Kotwali Bijapur about Mukesh’s disappearance.
After seeing the septic tank with new flooring in the badminton court in Suresh Chandrakar’s house, the senior officials were informed about the situation. In the presence of the Tehsildar and FSL team, the new flooring place was broken with the help of JCB and the lid of the tank was opened from the old structure.
On opening the lid of the septic tank, the body of a man was found in the tank, whose body was identified as the missing person, journalist Mukesh Chandrakar, from the tattoo on his hand.
The Kotwali police lodged an offence number 01/2025 under section 103, 238, 61, 3(5) of BNS and are further investigating the case. A Special Investigating Team (SIT) has been formed to expedite the investigation.
