Saumya Ranjan Patnaik Loan Fraud Case: The Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch of Odisha Police has arrested Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MLA Saumya Ranjan Patnaik on charges of loan fraud of more than Rs 50 crore. FIR has been registered against. At present the investigation of the crime branch is going on.
This development comes a few days after he was removed from the post of BJD vice president. The crime branch has registered charges against Patnaik under sections 506/467/468/471/420/120-B of the IPC. According to the FIR, he had forced a large number of employees of Sambad News Paper to take personal loans by threatening them.
Employees did not receive the loan amount
Not only this, the loan amount was also not given to the employees and the amount of crores of rupees received as loan was allegedly transferred to their employer based in Bhubaneswar. Used by the company ‘Eastern Media Limited’.
EOW raid
According to sources, 12 officers of EOW and Commissionerate Police searched the office of Odia newspaper Sambad in Bhubaneswar. During the raid, officials verified some documents related to loan approval and checked the details of bank accounts.
Former employee had lodged a complaint
Let us tell you that last Saturday, a former employee of the newspaper had lodged a complaint against Soumya Ranjan, Sambad’s HR head Baijayanti Kar and others. After this, EOW registered an FIR and raided the company office in Bhubaneswar."text-align: justify;">Interrogation of Sambad’s publisher
Earlier on Sunday, as part of its investigation, EOW had interrogated Sambad’s publisher Kamalakant Mahapata for about three hours. Odisha Police SP (EOW) Dilip Tripathi said that a case was registered against Baijayanti Kar, Soumyaranjan Patnaik and others on September 16, 2023.
The post of Vice President was snatched away from the party
Earlier on Tuesday (September 12), the ruling BJD in Odisha had removed Soumya Ranjan from the post of Vice President of the party. He had allegedly written a critical article in an Oriya newspaper.
This action against him was taken when senior leaders, including some ministers, accused him of blackmailing the party in the state by writing critical editorials in the Oriya newspaper ‘Sambad’ and giving statements on television channels. p style="text-align: justify;">Also read- MP Election 2023: Amidst BJP’s Ashirwad Yatra, Congress started Jan Aakrosh Yatra, what is the purpose?