Six detained for kidnapping and murder of young Bihar journalist

Patna: The Madhubani police in Bihar on Sunday claimed to have cracked the case of the suspicious death of 22-year-old local journalist Buddhinath Jha alias Avinash Jha. According to the police, he was killed due to his involvement in a 'love triangle'.

The police said Jha allegedly had an affair with a married woman identified as Purnkala Devi. Her husband hatched the conspiracy to kill Jha.

Jha's body was found dumped on the outskirts of a village in Bihar's Madhubani district on Friday.

The police have arrested six people in the case so far. The six have been identified as Roshan Kumar, Bittu Kumar, Deepak Kumar, Pawan Kumar, Manish Kumar and Purna Kala Devi.

Following his disappearance, Jha's father Dayanand Jha and brother Chandrashekher Jha lodged a missing complaint with the Benipatti police station. They feared that the journalist might have been kidnapped.

"Jha used to chat with Purnakala on mobile phone. We have investigated the call details of the deceased wherein he repeatedly made calls to Purnakala Devi, a native of Antrauli village in Benipatti police station. Accordingly, we have detained her for questioning. The victim broke down during the questioning and revealed the sequence of events," said Arun Kumar Singh, Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) of Benipatti range in Madhubani district.

Purnakala revealed that she met with Jha on Thursday and went to a local clinic Anurag healthcare on Kateya road in Benipatti. When they came out from the clinic, five persons, including her husband Jay Jay Ram Paswan, kidnapped Jha and took him to an undisclosed location," Singh added.

The other accused are identified as Roshan Kumar Shah, Bittu Kumar Pandit, Dipak Kumar Pandit and Manish Kumar apart from Purnakala's husband Jay Jay Ram Paswan.

Jha was last seen on the night of November 9 while speaking to a person over the phone. His half-burnt body, tied and packed in a sack, was found under a peepal tree in the Uren village near Benipatti-Basaith highway number 52 on the night of Friday, November 12.

He had been continuously raising the issue of the private hospital mafia and trying to expose the mafia operating fake medical clinics in his district. His family had alleged that he has been killed by this private hospital mafia. In fact, before the body of Avinash Jha was found, his brother Chandrashekhar Kumar Jha had filed a kidnapping case with the police, where he had named several hospitals and nursing homes.

Meanwhile, local residents are quite furious over Madhubani SP Dr. Satyaprakash terming Jha's murder as a fall out of a love affair that gone wrong. "Medical mafias killed my brother now police and SP are doing character assassination of Avinash that there was a love angle involved in this case. Whom Madhubani SP and his police are serving? We ask Madhubani police to at least read the FIR. We have named some nursing homes we doubt," his brother Trilok Nath Jha told OpIndia.