Eventually, however, a Maoist couple, Surendra Vekwara and Ruby, who were alleged to have killed the Swami, surrendered to the Orissa police.
[citation needed] However, BJP leaders like Manoj Pradhan and Ashok Sahu[8] incited Hindu mobs to attack the Christian Pano tribal villages.
On 15 October 2008, he was injured in a shootout[12] during a period when the armed constable Bakshis Singh of the elite Central Reserve Police Force was killed while trying to protect the minorities.
For the Indian general election in Orissa, 2009, the Bharatiya Janata Party inducted Pradhan, who had little political experience, as its candidate for the state legislature from the G Udaygiri constituency.
[11] In the run-up to the elections, Naveen Patnaik, leader of the Biju Janata Dal broke his ties with the BJP, saying that "the alliance in the state had to be broken because it became impossible for him to stay with the saffron party after the Kandhanmal riots which "horrified the entire world".
Pradhan became a Member of the Legislative Assembly,[15] but could not attend the oath-taking ceremony since his bail application was rejected by a court in Phulbani.
[17] On 29 June 2010, a fast-track court set up after the Kandhamal riots found Manoj Pradhan guilty of the murder of Parikhita Digal, a Christian from Budedi village who was killed by the mob on 27 August 2008.