Bhawanipatna: A lineman of power distribution company WESCO has allegedly defrauded residents here of over Rs 40 lakh promising them jobs and power connections to BPL consumers, a report said Thursday.
The accused, Jyotiranjan Samal, is a lineman-C at the Section-3 electricity office of the East Electricity Division of WESCO in Bhawanipatna in Kalahandi district.
Samal has been absconding since four months after complaints were lodged against him at various police stations. However, the police failed to speed up the probe and arrest the lineman, the defrauded youths said. Around seven complaints have been lodged at the Sadar police station alone.
According to the complaints Samal took Rs 50,000 from one Madan Kumbhar of Badapada in Bhawanipatna promising him a job, December 26, 2017. However, when Madan demanded his money back after he failed to get a job, Samal tried to hoodwink him and did not return it. Madan then filed a complaint with the police.
Samal is alleged to have defrauded Nirmal Naik of Rs 32,000, Kishore Majhi of Rs 30,000, Rajendra Nayak of Rs 20,000, Prasant Nayak of Rs 90,000, Ganesh Majhi of Rs 30,000, Pancham Majhi of Rs 30,000, Rajkumar Nayak of Rs 50,000, Runu Majhi of Rs 25,000, Yudhistir Bagh of Rs 70,000, Hari Sahu of Rs 1.20 lakh and Rajeshwar Tandi of Rs 80,000.
When contacted, Alok Ranjan Pattnaik, the Executive Engineer of WESCO, said a notice has been served at his house. He will be terminated from service after publishing a notification in a newspaper if he fails to reply to the notice.
However, the Sadar police IIC and his Town police station counterpart contradicted themselves. The Sadar IIC said that the complainants are interested in a compromise while the Town IIC admitted receiving complaints, but said the accused is absconding.
PNN