Bhubaneswar: A woman has claimed she is yet to receive the reward for providing information to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that led to the arrest of an aide of Dara Singh, the alleged killer of Australian missionary Graham Stewart Staines and his two sons.

Laxmi Lohar, a middle-aged woman from Bari village, claimed that she provided the tip that led to the arrest of Andha Nayak on October 27 last year. However, the police refuted her claim.

Lohar has written separate letters to the state police chief, Mayurbhanj district police chief and superintendent of police of the CBI making the claim, sources said.

"The police arrested Andha Nayak, a close associate of Dara Singh, last year on the basis of information provided by me and my husband," Lohar is reported to have written.

"There is no doubt that she is very close to Dara and the fugitive had stayed in her house several times. She never passed any information that could have helped in the arrest of Dara or his associates," state police chief S.K. Chatterjee told IANS.

"She was passing on information about the police's activities to Dara instead of helping us," he added.

Dara Singh, whose real name is Rabindra Kumar Pal, is also an accused in 13 other crimes. He was arrested along with his associate Jagannath Munda by the Mayurbhanj police from the forests of Gohira, a tiny village near the Orissa-Bihar border.

Of the Rs 800,000 prize money on Singh, Rs 500,000 was offered by the CBI and Rs 300,000 by the state government. "The process for distribution of prize money has already been started among the officials and real informants who helped in apprehending the accused," Chatterjee said.

India Abroad News Service