Olympic medallist Birendra Lakra accused of murder of childhood friend

NEW DELHI: Senior India hockey player Birendra Lakra was on Tuesday accused of involvement in the murder of his childhood friend Anand Toppo by the father of the deceased.

Lakra's friend was found dead inside his flat in Bhubaneswar in February this year and the father of the deceased Bandhan has accused the state police of shielding the hockey player since he served as a DSP at one time.

Bandhan said he has been struggling to file an FIR for the last four months but the state police did not help him, forcing him to go public with his accusations.

Lakra, 32, was part of India's bronze medal winning team at the Tokyo Games last year and also led the national side at the Asia Cup, where the team won a bronze medal.

"We and Birendra were next door neighbours, so naturally Anand was his childhood friend. On February 28, we got a call from Birendra that Anand is unconscious and he is taking him to the hospital. Later he informed us that Anand is no more," Bandhan Toppo said.

"We asked him what had happened but he just told us to come to Bhubaneswar. We reached there next day and we were taken to the local police station where the officer told us Anand had committed suicide. But there was no suicide note.

"We were shown Anand body's after much insistence and on the first look I saw hand marks on his neck. But the post mortem report said it was a suicide," said Bandhan. Agencies

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