Jajpur (Odisha), March 19 A day after arresting a banker, Odisha vigilance officers arrested his father and mother along with another man on Thursday for allegedly embezzling government funds amounting to Rs 5.56 crore in the Jajpur district, officials said.
The accused have been identified by the vigilance officers as Pradip Kumar Mohanty, his wife Gitarani Mohanty, and Bishnu Prasad Dash, a former senior clerk at the office of the Block Education Officer (BEO), Korei.
Pradip's son, Matruprasad Mohanty, the branch head of a small finance bank in Bhadrak, was arrested by the Vigilance team on Wednesday.
The vigilance team managed to apprehend the couple after tracking them across multiple locations in Odisha and West Bengal as they were on the run to avoid arrest.
Pradip, a headmaster in a government high school under the Korei block education office (BEO), was re-employed in the Korei BEO office after his retirement seven years ago.
The couple had allegedly been absconding since the embezzlement case came to light, and they had been frequently changing their locations to evade the police, a vigilance officer said.
Acting on an intelligence tip-off, a team from the anti-corruption department carried out raids at their suspected hideouts in Kolkata, where the duo was believed to be hiding a couple of days back. However, sensing trouble, they reportedly fled Kolkata on Wednesday night.
The couple later took refuge in a hotel in the Charampa area in the Bhadrak district late Wednesday night, where they were finally apprehended by the Vigilance team on Thursday morning, he said.
The officials said the accused are currently being questioned in connection with the case.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the misappropriated government funds were transferred to multiple personal accounts, including those of the main accused, Pradip Mohanty, his wife Gitarani, their son Matruprasad, and other members of their family.
Officials said that Pradip, in connivance with his banker son Matruprasad, fraudulently showed 13 retired teachers as still in service and prepared monthly salary bills amounting to Rs 5.56 crore in their names. The duration of the fraud spanned nearly six years, from November 2018 to September 2024, they said.
The funds were then diverted into personal and family bank accounts through illegal access to the Human Resource Management System (HRMS). Further investigation is underway to trace the money trail and identify other individuals involved in the fraud, the officials said.