BERHAMPUR: Berhampur Police arrested three persons on Friday for their alleged involvement in an organised racket of professional bailors accused of repeatedly misusing land Records of Rights (RoRs) to furnish bail sureties in multiple criminal cases before courts.
Berhampur SP Abhinav Sonkar said the case was registered at Baidyanathpur police station on November 5 based on a complaint lodged by law inspector Prasanta Kumar Mallick of Berhampur police district.
Mallick said certain professional bailors were allegedly using the same land records repeatedly to stand as sureties for different accused persons in multiple criminal cases.
Investigation revealed that the alleged racket was operating in an organised manner within the Brahmapur court premises. The persons involved reportedly had no familial or personal connections with the accused for whom they furnished bail sureties. Police identified four persons who had allegedly used identical land records in 32 instances across different criminal cases.
The four identified persons are Bulu Routa (56), Venkat Prasad Pattnaik (60), Sanyasi Mohanty (59) and Babula Nayak (66). Police arrested Pattnaik, Nayak and Routa, all in localities of Berhampur, said Sonkar
Three keypad mobile phones were seized from the arrested persons, said Sonkar, adding that all three arrested persons had previous cases registered against them at Baidyanathpur police station in December 2024 in connection with alleged cheating and forgery.
Pattnaik was also previously booked at Gosaninuagaon police station. The accused were medically examined at the district headquarters hospital and produced before court, where the police sought their remand in judicial custody.
Investigation is underway to identify other members of the suspected network, verify the authenticity of the land records used for furnishing bail sureties and establish whether other persons facilitated the alleged illegal activities.
Police are also examining the possibility of a wider network exploiting loopholes in the bail verification process to facilitate the release of accused persons through fraudulent documentation.