MALKANGIRI: Mathili police has arrested five persons on charges of looting cash from the Soil Conservation department office here on Wednesday. The arrests were made on Thursday following a complaint by the department’s Assistant Director (AD) Pramod Kumar Behera. The looted cash, amounting to Rs 8.71 lakh was also recovered from the possession of the accused identified as Rama Chandra Nag (32), Prasanta Sagaria (31), Ratan Majhi (31), Ananda Kasyap (35) and Krushna Kotia (38). All are locals.
Police said, Behera in his complaint stated that Nag of Daiguda village was employed as a collecting agent under Rainfed Area Development (RAD) project and had collected Rs 8,71,000 cash from beneficiaries of Mendukuli, Duraguda, Ramaguda and Bamanguda villages. He was supposed to hand over the amount to Behera for provision of plants, fertilisers and other instruments to the beneficiaries.
On Wednesday, as per an orchestrated plan, Nag reached Behera’s office to hand over the money. When Behera went inside to fetch a diary for making necessary entries, a group of unidentified armed miscreants barged into the office and tried to snatch the cash bag. While Behera tried to catch hold of them, the accused assaulted him and fled with the money. Following the incident, Behera reached out to the police and filed a case. Besides the recovered cash, police seized five mobile phones, as many motorcycles and a knife from Nag and others.