BHUBANESWAR: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday carried out searches on 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 conducted simultaneous searches in Bhadrak and Bhubaneswar in connection with alleged swindling of funds by the management of 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 authorities citing ‘mismanagement’. Though the case was initially closed, the district police reopened the investigation a few years later. Prayas Kanti is accused of swindling the fees of students and investing the money to buy property worth crores of rupees in Bhubaneswar.
ED officials carried out searches at a property linked to him in 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 Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Investigation is on 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 also offers MTech courses.