EOW ARRESTED ANOTHER FRAUDSTER IN Rs. 5 Crs FUND SIPHONING CASE

Odishabarta

Bhubaneswar: One more fraudster involved in the Rs 5 crore Odisha Government fund siphoning case has been arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) here, agency sources said on Thursday.

The sources said Bikash Kumar Mansingh, the mastermind, was arrested from Rourkela on January 5 under various sections of Indian Penal Code, including those dealing with cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy. Earlier, four accused involved in the case were arrested by the EOW.

A case was registered on April 7, 2021 following a report by the Chief District Medical Officer (CDMO), Subarnapur alleging that an amount of Rs 5 crore has been unauthorisedly diverted from the account of Zilla Swasthya Samiti-National Health Mission (ZSS-NHM), Subarnapur by hacking Public Financial Management System (PFMS) of National Health Mission in the account of M/s Naturals.

During investigation, it has been ascertained that the accused Bikash Kumar Mansingh, a businessman from Rourkela, is the proprietor of M/s Naturals and has been maintaining his account with Central Bank of India, Main Branch, Rourkela, the EOW said.

During March 2021, he entered into a criminal conspiracy with the arrested accused Rajkishore Nayak, Ananta Charan Pradhan, Abinash Pradhan and Samir Kumar Pati. On April 2, 2021, they unauthorisedly hacked the portal of NHM system and generated one e-cheque amounting to Rs 5 crore. On April 7, 2021, they got the cheque cleared from SBI, Sonepur. Subsequently, the accused persons had withdrawn the money for their own use.

Accused Rajkishore Nayak was a former employee of NHM, Sonepur. Ananta Charan Pradhan and Abinash Pradhan are his relatives. Samir Kumar Pati is an employee of Bikash Kumar Mansingh. During investigation, out of the siphoned amount of Rs 5 crore, an amount of approximately Rs 3.30 crore was frozen. Efforts are on to arrest others involved in the crime.