Khallikote: A local court here today convicted five persons and sentenced them to life imprisonment in the sensational murder of television journalist Tarun Acharya that rocked the entire district 5 years ago.
Additional district judge Srinivas Pratihari convicted the five persons including mastermind P Shyam Sundar Prusty, the owner of a cashew factory. He has been convicted under Sections 302, 102 (B) and 109 of the IPC.
The four other convicts are Shivram Nayak, Santosh Kumar Maharana, Suresh Kumar Sahu and M Ramesh Reddy.
Notably, on May 28, 2014, Acharya, a TV journalist was returning to his village Bikrampur from Khallikote in the night when miscreants killed him by slitting his throat.
According to sources, the journalist had a quarrel with the mastermind Prusty a few days before the incident following the publication of a news on children engaged in the latter’s cashew processing unit.
Angry over the news publication, Prusty reportedly hired contract killer Nrusingh Charan Panda alias Budu to eliminate Acharya.
The Orissa High Court while hearing the case had handed over it to the Crime Branch. The contract killer is still on the run.