BHUBANESWAR: Six miscreants barged into the office of BMC additional commissioner Ratnakar Sahu on Monday morning, dragged him out by the collar and beat him up mercilessly in full public view over a purported phone conversation with a local BJP leader. The incident triggered a furore with BJP’s Bhubaneswar MP Aparajita Sarangi and leader of opposition and BJD president Naveen Patnaik condemning the brutal assault.Police have arrested three persons based on Sahu’s complaint. Among those arrested is Jeevan Rout, a BJP corporator of ward-29, who was present during the incident. Rashmi Mohapatra and Debashis Pradhan were the other two apprehended.“We have arrested three persons involved in the attack. They have been booked under Section 109 (attempt to murder) of BNS. Further investigation is on to identify others involved,” twin cities police commissioner S Dev Datta Singh, said. According to the 55-year-old Sahu, a senior Odisha Administrative Service (OAS) officer, some heavily built men entered his office in the morning and asked whether he had spoken to Jagannath Pradhan, a BJP member who had unsuccessfully contested the last assembly election from Bhubaneswar-north.“As soon as I nodded that I had spoken to him (Pradhan), they began assaulting me. They beat me up in full public view with the intention to kill me. Despite repeated pleas, they continued the physical assault,” Sahu wrote in his complaint.Video footage, which TOI could not independently verify till the time of going to press, showed the men dragging him on the ground by his collar as others began punching him. One of the men was seen repeatedly kicking Sahu on his chest. The attack continued for 25 minutes, with hundreds of BMC employees and 12 private security guards staying mute spectators until mayor Sulochana Das and ex-deputy mayor Bharati Singh came to Sahu’s rescue. The assailants also had a confrontation with the mayor. “The incident has caused me grave physical injuries and immense mental trauma,” Sahu’s complaint read.“The men were trying to abduct the officer, dragging him on the ground and continuously kicking him in the face. They were dragging him mercilessly. We are all feeling unsafe in BMC,” the mayor said.In the evening, led by the mayor, BJD corporators took to the street to protest against the assault. They were joined by senior BJD leaders at Janpath, resulting in a massive traffic snarl in the evening. Expressing shock at the incident, Naveen wrote on X, “A senior officer of additional secretary rank was dragged from his office and brutally kicked. What is more appalling is that this happened in broad daylight.” Aparajita also condemned the attack, saying both the party and govt should take stringent action against the assailants. “Physically assaulting a serving government official is not acceptable,” the MP said.Pradhan, whose name figure in the complaint, denied the allegations, and said he knew two of the men in the video. “I have no role in the BMC officer’s attack. I have discussed it with the police, and appropriate action will be taken,” Pradhan told the media.The Odisha Administrative Service (OAS) Association announced that its members will go on “mass leave” starting Tuesday in protest against the alleged assault on a senior OAS officer. The decision was taken during a meeting of the association held in Bhubaneswar, chaired by its president, Jyoti Ranjan Mishra.
