Odisha Vigilance Arrests Asst Engineer Kartikeswar Roul's Second Wife; Additional Rs 1.4 Cr Cash Seized

The officials of the Vigilance Directorate on Saturday recovered Rs 1.4 crore more cash belonging to arrested Kartikeswar Roul, Assistant Engineer of the Minor Irrigation Division in Ganjam district.

The cash was recovered from the house of the sister of Kalpana Pradhan, the second wife of Roul, in Salia Sahi area in Bhubaneswar. With, the total cash seized from Roul and his family members goes to a record Rs 3,41,66,280.

After hours of interrogating, the Vigilance officials later arrested Roul's second wife Kalpana Pradhan. Both Pradhan and her sister were grilled by the investigating agency in connection with the seizure of cash today. Senior officials said that Pradhan was arrested for actively abetting the offence of her husband under the PC Act and for concealing the illgotten money acquired by him through corrupt practices.

“We have also found 354 grams of gold and property documents indicating purchase of a Triplex from M/s Kesari Estate Pvt Ltd at Pokhariput on cash payment of Rs 78,50,000,” tweeted Odisha Vigilance.

Earlier, Rs 2 crore cash and 20 gold biscuits weighing around 580 gm were recovered during a search which was conducted on the properties linked to Raul following allegations that he had accumulated assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. This was the highest ever seizures of unaccounted cash of Rs 2.05 crore from unscrupulous government officials by the Vigilance.

The raid was conducted on the house of Roul and his second wife Kalpana Pradhan at a luxury apartment in Bhubaneswar on Thursday.

Apart from this, two apartment flats, seven plots, a duplex at Jagamara in Bhubaneswar, bank deposits of Rs 37.27 lakh and Rs 2.5 lakh belonging to the engineer were also detected.

Roul was subsequently arrested on Friday on charges of amassing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.