Malkangiri, February 7: Project Director(PD) Watershed, Malkangiri Shantanu Mohapatra was held on Friday on the charges of amassing disproportionate assets.
Apart from it, 4 of Mohapatra’s aides who were supporting him in collecting bribes, were also arrested by the Vigilance.
The accused aides held, are identified as Asst. Engineer Agriculture Mohan Mandal, DTP operator Biswajit Mandal, Amiyakant Sahu (contractual staffer) and Janaseba Kendra operator Alekh Chandra Sahu.
Odisha vigilance had recovered Rs 2.86 crore cash from the possession of Santanu Mohapatra, PD Watershed during vigilance raids conducted on Wednesday.
On the allegation of possession of Disproportionate Assets (DA) by Mohapatra, Deputy Director and PD (Project Director), Watershed, Malkangiri, Dist-Malkangiri to his known sources of income, simultaneous house searches were conducted by Odisha Vigilance led by 2 Addl. SPs, 4 DSPs,10 Inspectors, 6 ASIs, and other supporting staff on the strength of search warrants issued by Special Judge, Vigilance, Jeypore at 7 locations in Malkangiri, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.
During the raids, a residential triple storeyed building located at Jeypore was unearthed along with the huge amount of cash.
Following this, the vigilance sleuths raided on the house of one Mohan Mandal, Asst. Agriculture Engineer located at Malkangiri,house of Biswajit Mandal, Data Entry Operator and house of Amiyakanta Sahu, Contractual staffer, employed in the watershed office.
Search operation is yet on to exhume the DAs possessed by the errant officer, informed the Vigilance team.
