Private parts, tongue mutilated, worker tells conflicting stories

A 20-year-old labourer with grievous injuries on his tongue and private parts is giving contrary accounts of how they came about.

Bijoy Naik, a native of Odisha, had first said he was abducted and mutilated, but later changed his story, claiming he inflicted the injuries on himself to acquire astrological powers.

Naik is a construction worker who occasionally works as a carpenter. He lives with his relatives, also construction workers. On Saturday morning, he told the police four men had accosted him late on Thursday, after telling him they wanted to talk to him about a theft in the area.

“I refused to go with them, but was gagged and taken to a place with dense vegetation in Immadihalli. They injured my private parts with a sharp-edged weapon and cut off a part of my tongue,” Naik had said. Despite his tongue laceration, he can speak. In any case, he lost consciousness because of the pain, and came to only on Friday night, police said. Naik woke up and ambled home. On Saturday morning, as soon as he woke up, he began to writhe and scream, and relatives rushed him to a private hospital. Based on his statement, Whitefield police registered a case.

 In the evening on Saturday, when the police again asked him to identify his tormentors, Naik broke down and said he had inflicted the injuries on himself. “He said he was an ardent devotee of a goddess and dabbled in astrology. He would predict the future of his fellow-workers, and they had told him to perform puja regularly to gain more powers,” a police officer said.
DH News Service

Dream dimension
After first claiming he was kidnapped and mutilated, Bijoy Naik said a goddess had appeared in his dream and told him to sacrifice his tongue and private parts. “I then went to Immadihalli and cut myself,” he said in the evening on Saturday. Police suspect the labourer is mentally disturbed. “We will again question him on Sunday,” a senior policeman said. Investigators are now trying to find out which of Naik’s two stories is true.