BHUBANESWAR: Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik’s ‘muscleman’ and Biju Janata Dal MLA Pradeep Maharathy was on Monday arrested on Monday for allegedly attacking on ECI’s flying squad Magistrate Rabinarayan Patra and Static Surveillance Team (SST) members at Pipili in Puri district.
Maharathy, who is BJD candidate from Pipili Assembly constituency, was arrested after being interrogated in connection with the incident at Pipili police station.
According to magistrate Rabinarayan Patra, he and his team members were attacked with lathis and hockey by the MLA and his supporters while trying to conduct a search operation at the lawmaker’s farmhouse at Hunkeipur near Pipili.
Maharathy said that he was sad to know about attack on the EC squad at his farmhouse and clarified that he was not involved in the attack.
“On Sunday night, the whole Pipili area was in dark due to power outage after storm and at around midnight, the EC special squad entered my farmhouse by breaking the gate lock. So people present at the farmhouse protested their entry following which a verbal disagreement and later a scuffle broke out between them,” Maharathy said.
