BHUBANESWAR: Bibekananda Biswal, the prime accused in the 1999 Baranga gang-rape case, who was nabbed on Monday after being on the run for 22 years, came under police scanner for using a fake identity and frequently sending money to his family from a bank account he had opened using forged documents. Biswal, 50, had been working as a plumber at Lonavala in Maharashtra since 2007, having changed his identity to Jalandhar Swain.
He had successfully managed to keep his identity guarded and police at bay for more than a decade until the Bhubaneswar-Cuttack commissioner of police, Sudhanshu Sarangi, met Dhirendra Mohanty, Biswal’s accomplice who is serving life term for the crime, in November last year and decided to reopen the case. Though the case was being handled by CBI, Sarangi became curious to know about Biswal’s whereabouts.
“We found that Biswal’s family members have been withdrawing money from an account of one Jalandhar Swain in Lonavala,” a senior police officer said. Last week, a team from Cuttack went to Lonavala and detained the suspect. Police later ascertained his identity with the help of villagers and family members.
In 1999, Biswal, Pradeep Sahu and Dhirendra Mohanty were accused of raping the estranged wife of an IFS officer at Baranga, the controversy around which forced the then CM J B Patnaik to resign.