Jagadanandas death remains a mystery

BARGARH: It was on July 31 in 2009, people of Deogaon village in the district woke up to a spine chilling incident of murder and suicide.Senior IAS officer Jagadananda Panda shot dead his father Manswi Panda, wife Surekha, sisters Bijaylaxmi Dash and Kishori Mishra before shooting himself dead. Panda was  posted as Proctor General-Immigration, Ministry of External Affairs.  His son Swapnes, however, managed to survive after a bullet pierced through his temple. Since then, he has not recovered from memory loss. The incident came to light after his step-mother who was sleeping upstairs came down and saw the family members lying in a pool of blood and raised alarm. The incident left people shocked as Panda was a low profile, down-to-earth man and was popular among the villagers and his peers for his contribution towards development of the region.It has been two years and no headway has  been made in the investigation. Although it was believed that Swapnes could throw light on the incident, he continues to suffer from memory loss. Sources said Panda was in mental turmoil after the CBI raids at his residence in New Delhi, Bhubaneswar and at Deogaon. It is believed that he perhaps did not want to live with ignominy and hence could have killed himself and family members.However, the incident has left many questions unanswered. After irregularities in the immigration were found by CBI, Panda was asked to go on leave for three months and even a leave application from July 22 to October 30, 2009 was recovered from his brief case. A four-page suicide note was found near his body that was marked to Union Minister Vyallar Ravi and Union Secretary (Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs) K Mohan Das besides various media houses. In his suicide note, Panda had pleaded innocence. It also included list of his properties, direction for publication of the biography of his father and his Income Tax returns.Sources said although there were loose ends in the murders, police acted too fast by closing the case terming it as a clear case of homicide. The CBI too, is yet to come out with outcome of the investigation and role of Panda.