ROURKELA: Two persons were arrested on charges of extorting and duping a senior government official of Rs 4 lakh by posing as Vigilance officers, police said on Friday.
The accused are Ganesh Prasad Nanda and his relative Pradeep Panda, both from Mendhamal village under Birmaharajpur police limits in Sonepur district. Posing as Vigilance officials, the accused duo reportedly extorted Rs 4 lakh in two installments from the block development officer (BDO) of Bonai with the threat to implicate him in false cases.
Police said the accused had demanded `8 lakh from the BDO but managed to extract Rs 4 lakh. They were targeting government officials from 2021 onwards.
Sources in Rourkela Vigilance division said Nanda used different mobile numbers which were shown as that of Vigilance officers in the Truecaller app. Using these numbers, the duo would accuse government officers of indulging in bribery, misuse of funds or other irregularities. They would then seek money from the victims on the pretext of sparing them from raids conducted in connection with disproportionate assets cases.
In an earlier incident, the duo had reportedly sent a group of hired persons in a vehicle to the office of a government officer. They then rang up the officer and threatened him to pay the extortion money to avoid a raid by the fake team waiting outside his office.
Recently, the Odisha Vigilance received reliable inputs regarding extortion attempts by the accused following which a close watch was kept on them. On Thursday, a joint team of Vigilance and Bonai police arrested the two accused from their native place on charges of cheating, impersonation, and extortion.
A case was registered against the duo in Bonai police station under sections 308 (2), 318 (4) and 319 (2) of BNS and section 66 (c) (d) of the IT Act,2005. The accused were produced in Bonai SDJM court in Sundargarh district.
Police said as per available data, the two accused had called around 18-20 people in the last over a year to extort money. Further investigation is underway to determine the exact number of such incidents in which they are involved.