Odisha: Govt official, others arrested in disproportionate assets case

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Vigilance on Friday arrested Santanu Mohapatra, the deputy director and project director of a watershed, in Malkangiri district on the alleged charges of amassing disproportionate assets which are 414 per cent of his known sources of income, officials said.

The Vigilance sources also revealed that four accomplices of Mohapatra have also been arrested for helping him in the accumulation of properties worth crores.

The arrested accomplices — Mohan Mandal, Assistant Agriculture Engineer; Biswajit Mandal, Data Entry Operator (DEO); Amiyakanta Sahu, Contractual Staff — posted at the office of PD Watershed, Malkangiri.

The Vigilance officials arrested Alekh Pradhan, who operates a Jan Seva Kendra at the Jagannath Prasad in Ganjam district and were arrested by anti-corruption officers in this connection.

The Vigilance officers during the investigation came to know that Pradhan was acting as a conduit of accused Mohapatra in bribe collection.

Pradhan used to collect bribes online from contractors and others on behalf of Mohapatra, and subsequently transfer them to his account.

The Vigilance officers during the searches also fetched evidence revealing transfers to the tune of more than Rs 1 crore done by Pradhan from 2019 till 2024.

“Mohapatra and his colleagues are suspected to have siphoned off government funds showing work done and making payments to labor accounts, which were then withdrawn and misappropriated. A large number of passbooks of labourers were recovered during searches at the residence of DEO Biswajit Mandal and Amiyakanta Sahu, Contractual employee of the office,” said a senior Vigilance official.

The police suspect that the labourers’ bank accounts were being operated by the accused persons to smoothly carry out withdrawal and misappropriation of government funds.

A separate inquiry has been launched in this regard, and files connected to works shown completed in the last two years have been brought for scrutiny.

Notably, the Vigilance Department on Wednesday launched simultaneous house searches on the properties of Mohapatra at seven locations, including Malkangiri, Cuttack, and Bhubaneswar, which continued for the last three days.

The police officers following the house searches found Mohapatra and his family were in possession of one triple-storeyed residential building at Jeypore in Koraput, four highly valued land plots at prime locations in Bhubaneswar and Jeypore town, gold jewellery weighing 422.44 gm, bank and insurance deposits worth Rs 91,10,306, one four-wheeler, two 2-wheelers and household articles worth more than Rs 29.08 lakh.

The officers also recovered cash worth Rs 2,08,92,850 during the house searches at the properties linked to Mohapatra and his accomplices.

This is among the top cash seizures in the history of the State Vigilance.

–IANS