PARADIP: A man and his wife were arrested by Paradip police from Laxmisagar of Bhubaneswar on charges of duping women of lakhs of rupees in Paradip in the name of a fake society on Thursday. Another couple, who operated the society, is absconding.
One Baijendra Panda of Balasore district was working as DLR (daily labour reporter) in Indian Railway and staying with his wife Manjulata at Nuabazar in Paradip for the last 12 years. During the period, the couple opened a fake society in Paradip and lured the locals especially women promising to give interest at the rate of six to 10 per cent as per plan and scheme.
They introduced several schemes on saving, insurance, land purchasing in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Paradip. Hundreds of women of Paradip deposited about `1 crore. Kadambini Nayak of the town alleged that soon after opening the society, couple had given double the amount of their saving to a few customers. Following this, she had deposited nearly `1 lakh but the society did not return the deposited amount with interest and later, she sought the intervention of police.
The couple disappeared from the locality after taking money. More than 98 harried women lodged FIR against the accused Baijendra and his wife in February.
Acting on the FIR, police registered a case and after four months, raided the house of a relative of the couple in Bhubaneswar on Thursday. They arrested Bidyutlata Das, sister of accused Baijendra and her husband Suryakant Das.
During investigation, police found that there is no bank account of the accused couple in Paradip. Police said the money collected from the women in Paradip was deposited in the account of Bidyutlata and her husband. The couple used to run flour mill and purchased valuable land in the Capital city with the money.
IIC of Paradip police station Shivasankar Mohapatra said the raid will continue till Baijendra and his wife are arrested.
Police have sought intervention of Economic Offences Wing (EOW) to unearth the racket, he added.