BHUBANESWAR: Alleging that senior leaders of BJP and top police officials are involved in the SI recruitment scam, the BJD on Friday accused the state government of shielding the culprits through the Crime Branch probe.
Addressing mediapersons here, BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty said the Crime Branch is claiming to have made a major breakthrough three weeks after the incident by arresting Muna Mohanty and Rinku Maharana, two close associates of the main accused Sankar Prusty. The investigation has been limited to arresting a few minor players and protecting the main accused, he alleged.
Mohanty said while the Odisha Police Recruitment Board (OPRB) was responsible for the recruitment of about 933 sub-inspectors, the task was handed over to ITI, a gentral government agency. ITI, in turn, outsourced the work to Silicon Techlab, which again subcontracted it to Panchsoft Technologies.
Mohanty questioned how the outsourcing was allowed since the Police department functions directly under the chief minister. He said the CM should make it clear whether he had given permission for it. He also raised doubts about the role of senior officials of police and stated that the Crime Branch’s probe is deliberately avoiding these crucial aspects to protect the powerful persons involved.