CUTTACK: Twenty-fiveyears after he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his adoptive parents, Prasanta Kumar Sahoo (now aged 65) has been acquitted by Orissa high court which ruled that his mere presence in the house on the night of murder and subsequently going into hiding couldn’t be the sole criteria of his guilty. In a strongly worded judgment delivered on Oct 9, a division bench of Justices S K Sahoo and Chittaranjan Dash pulled up the trial court for relying on “surmise and conjecture” and convicting Prasanta despite the prosecution’s failure to prove the motive beyond doubt. Jadu (75) and Pitei Sahu (65) were found murdered on the night of Aug 13, 1996 at Banchhara village under Jatni police station limits of Khurda district. Prasanta was convicted of murder b

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