Maoist leader Sabyasachi Panda gets life term in Bada Bazaar case

Reporters Today, Berhampur, May 18: The Additional District and Sessions Judge here on Saturday sentenced Maoist leader Sabyasachi Panda to life imprisonment in connection with 2014 Bada Bazaar case.

Berhampur ADJ-1 Sanjay Sahu pronounced the judgment.

However, Sabyasachi’s counsel Dipak Patnaik said that the court in the para-27 of its 62-page judgment copy censured the police and the prosecution for failing to produce proper evidence relating to this case.

“But as the court has pronounced its judgment by taking its own view, we will move the upper court. I hope that we will get justice,” he added.

Patnaik further said that a total of 135 cases had been registered against his client of which, the court had earlier acquitted him in 52 cases, including murder, loot and abduction.

The Maoist leader, who was arrested in July 2014, was operating in Southern Odisha districts of Rayagada, Gajapati, Ganjam, Kandhamal and Nayagarh.

In February 2019, the Supreme Court had rejected his bail plea in the Nayagarh police station attack case, diminishing his chances of walking free despite being acquitted by courts in Odisha in multiple cases.

He had moved the top court after Orissa High Court, in 2018, squashed his petition, pertaining to this case.