Vigilance to take arrested Athagarh DFO on remand

Cuttack: The Vigilance sleuths will take the arrested Athagarh Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Sudhanshu Mishar on five to seven days' remand for further interrogation, said Vigilance director Rajendra Prasad Sharma.

Informing this to newsmen, Sharma said, “A special investigation team has been formed for the interrogation of the arrested DFO.”

“The investigating team will interrogate Mishra to find out whether he has any links with any mafia or involvement in smuggling of wild animal or not,” Sharma added.

Notably on Thursday, the state investigating agency had arrested Mishra after cash worth over Rs 1 crore and gold ornaments weighing over 500 grams was seized from his Cuttack residence him on Wednesday. Vigilance sleuths had also unearthed properties worth Rs six crore, disproportionate to his known source of income during simultaneous raids conducted at 10 different places including Bhubaneswar, Sambalpur, Bhawanipatna, Koraput, Sonepur, Puri and Mishra’s office at Athgarh.

Mishra has been remanded to judicial custody for 15 days.

While cash worth Rs 93.61 lakh was recovered from his residence in Cuttack, Rs 2.62 crore was detected in the form of fixed deposits in banks and post offices. Besides, gold ornaments and gold coins weighing 551.39 gms worth Rs 8.26 lakh were also recovered from Mishra’s residence.

Vigilance officials said the value of movable assets of Mishra had been estimated at Rs 1.12 crore. This involves residential plots at Gopalpur (Ganjam), Bolangir, Sambalpur, Bhawanipatna and Bhubaneswar besides flats at Bhubaneswar, Puri and Bhawanipatna.