Odisha: BJP leader arrested after assault on municipal official triggers protest by bureaucrats

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jagannath Pradhan was arrested in Bhubaneswar on Thursday after protests by Odisha bureaucrats against the assault on a senior official, The Indian Express reported.

On Monday, a group of men assaulted a municipal official in Bhubaneswar and dragged him out of his office during a weekly grievance hearing session.

The official, Additional Commissioner Ratnakar Sahoo of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, alleged in his police complaint that six to seven unknown men entered his chamber and aggressively asked him if he had spoken to Pradhan.

Sahoo told the men he had spoken to the BJP leader on the phone earlier in the day. He alleged that the group then tried to drag him by his shirt collar into a vehicle, demanding that he go to the BJP leader and apologise. It was not clear what the attackers wanted the official to apologise for.

More than 3,600 officials, 2,400 from the Odisha Administrative Services and 1,200 from the Odisha Revenue Services, had been on strike for the past three days, paralysing essential public services across the state, The Telegraph reported.

The employee associations allege that Pradhan is the prime accused in the attack on Sahoo.

Odisha Administrative Services Association President Jyoti Ranjan Singh told The Telegraph that the incident was an attack on “the dignity of the entire public service”.

Though Pradhan had condemned the assault,...

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