CUTTACK: Almost three and half months after the egg attack incident on BJD MP Baijayant Panda , police on Friday arrested six persons in connection with the crime.Police said the six accused are native of different villages in Mahanga block , where the incident had occurred on May 30. The six accused have been booked under 147(rioting), 294(obscene act), 323 (causing hurt), 336(endangering personal safety), 355(assaulting),506(criminal intimidation), 149(unlawful assembly) of IPC.Notably, the arrests come just four days after chief minister Naveen Patnaik in a written reply to a question from BJP MLA Dilip Ray informed the assembly that no arrest has been made so far in only one out of 16 egg hurling incidents on politicians reported in the state since January 2015 till now.On September 11, the chief minister had informed the assembly that at least 89 accused have been arrested so far in 15 egg hurling incidents while in one incident, where Panda was attacked with eggs during the inauguration of an overhead water project in Jatiparilo village in Mahanga in the district, no arrest has been made yet.Panda reacted to the arrests on his favorite twitter platform. Panda tweeted "Hmm... 4 months after attack (w/eggs AND stones, in presence of 2 police platoons, on live tv). & assembly embarrassment as only exception"The timing of the arrests has raised many eyebrows. However, police have claimed that they had identified the miscreants much earlier and were in the process of arresting them. "After identifying the miscreants through video footage of the event recorded by regional news channel, we had issued notices to these six persons. But none of them turned up following which they have been arrested," said a police officer.Sub-divisional police officer, Salipur P K Jena said, "Investigation of the case is still on. More persons might be arrested,"The accused have been identified as Sarat Jena(42), Sarat Maharana(40), Santanu Mallik(43), Rajesh Sahoo(26), Santosh Jena(26) and Sankarsan Mallik(50).Notably, when Panda had visited Mahanga to inaugurate the water project, constructed with his MP LAD fund, few BJD workers had allegedly attacked him with eggs, stones and chappals. It was alleged that supporters of Mahanga BJD MLA and health minister Pratap Jena had carried out the attack as Jena was not invited to the event.

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