BHUBANESWAR: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday carried out searches at an engineering college linked to senior BJD leader and former minister Prafulla Samal in connection with a money laundering case.
Sources said the central agency's officers carried out simultaneous searches in the Bhadrak Institute of Engineering and Technology (BIET) in Barapada. Prafulla's son Prayas Kanti is the president of BIET, said sources.
In 2016, Bhadrak police had registered a case against the college's authorities citing 'mismanagement'. Though the case was initially closed, but the district police reopened the investigation a few years later. Prayas Kanti is accused of swindling the fee of students and investing the money to buy a property worth crores of rupees in the capital. ED officials carried out searches at a property linked to him in the capital city's Palaspalli area.
The central agency also searched the property of a builder having links with Prayas Kanti. The builder has criminal antecedents and earlier several buyers had lodged cheating complaints against him with the city police, sources in ED said.
"On receiving allegations of misappropriation of college funds, a case was registered by ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The investigation is continuing and further action will be taken accordingly," said sources.
BIET offers undergraduate courses like computer science and engineering, civil engineering, electronics and telecommunication engineering, information technology and others. The institute is also offering M.Tech courses like mechanical engineering, electronics and telecommunication engineering, among others.