BOUDH: Eight persons were arrested by Boudh police on Tuesday for hoodwinking people in the name of pilgrimage and collecting Rs five lakh from them. They are Lalit Narayan Barik of Narsinghpur in Cuttack district; Prabhuji Das, Surendra Joshi, Dhruba Khatua and Bhubaneswar Meher of Boudh; Netra Manhira, Prafulla Kumar Chand and Makardhwaj Jena of Athamallik in Angul district. An MUV has been seized from them.
They had collected Rs 7,000 each from 72 people, belonging to different villages of Boudh, assuring to take them on pilgrimage across the country.
The journey was to begin on Tuesday from Badhigaon here. When people came to the place to start the journey, the accused were nowhere to be seen. Subsequently, people registered an FIR against them in the local police station, which led to the arrest.