Four arrested in Munger for murder of volleyball players

BHAGALPUR: The four accused involved in the killing of four volleyball players in diara (riverine) area on the borders of Naugachia and Khagaria, were arrested by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) consisting of Munger and Khagaria districts. The arrests were made from the hideout of an illegal arms supplier of Bardah village in Munger district after Thursday midnight.
The arrests came a day after range DIG Vikas Vaibhav suspended Bihpur SHO under Naugachia police district on the charges of dereliction of duty and suspected links with criminals besides leaking classified information related to police action being taken against the accused.
Arrested persons include Pinku Jha (resident of Gouripur village under Bihpur PS, Naugachia), Vikas Kumar (resident of Jamaldipur village under Kharik PS, Naugachia), Prabhakar Chowdhary (resident of Arsa village under Parbatta PS, Khagaria) and alleged illegal arms supplier Shabaz Alam (resident of Bardah village, Munger).
It may be mentioned here that four volleyball players—Pradep Jha (Narkatia village, Naugachia), Shrawan Choudhary (Narkatia village, Naugachia), Chotu Choudhary (Gouripur village in Naugachia) and Sourav Kumar (Gouripur village in Naugachia), all in their 20s and residents of Bihpur in Naugachia police district, had gone to participate in a volleyball match in Parbatta village under Khagaria police station on November 13, 2017. They went missing since then and their mobile numbers too were found to switched-off.
Later on, Naugachia police officials received an information that the four missing players have been butchered and parts of their bodies were dumped somewhere in the diara areas of Ganga. During search operation, police found bloodstains at diara of Lagar village under Parbatta police station besides recovering bloodstained clothes.
Bhagalpur range DIG (also in-charge of Munger range) Vikas Vaibhav had formed an SIT to crack the case.
Soon after the suspension of Bihpur SHO and transfer of the entire police personnel posted at Bihpur police station, all the accused were arrested, apart from one Rohit Kumar (resident of Tuthi village under Parbatta PS in Khagaria) who was arrested on November 18 and is said to have called the deceased to play a volleyball match.
Vaibhav said the arrest of the accused is a big achievement for SIT, Munger and Khagaria police forces. Meanwhile, the SIT has also recovered the body of one of the deceased, Sourav Kumar, from the mainstream of river Ganga near Kahalgaon and efforts are underway to recover the bodies of other three.