Puri: A group of youths, duped by a police constable in 2014 on the pretext of providing them jobs with the reserve police, has alleged that some police officers are leaving no stone unturned to hush up the case.
Sources said it has been more than five months since Puri Superintendent of Police (SP) Sarthak Sarangi ordered an enquiry into the job fraud, but the investigating officer (IO) is causing inordinate delay in submitting his report.
“We are getting threatening calls, demanding withdrawal of our complainant. If the police did not take prompt action against the fraudster, we will hold an indefinite hunger-fast in front of the SP office here,” said one of the victims of the fraud.
In the case in question, a man employed as a constable with the reserve police had duped seven job-seekers of Arakuda area in Brahmagiri police limits on the promise of providing them employment in the force.
The constable, with the help of one of his relatives in the area, had collected Rs 1.8 lakh from Harihar Behera, Aparajita Behera, Bapuji Behera, Prasanna Sahu, Basu Behera, Kedar Behera and Sanjay Sahu of the area, promising them that all of them would be accommodated in the reserve police.
After endless wait when nothing happened, the youths realised that they have been cheated and started demanding their money back. The accused, however, gave them fake offer letters of employment at the Beach police station and also provided them with police uniforms.
The fraud came to light after the Beach police arrested two of the victims on charges of impersonating as cops during the Nabakalebara festival in 2015.
In order to bury the fraud committed by their own staffer, the police released the duo without registering any case in this regard. When the victims tried to contact the accused, the latter remained unreachable.
One of the victims along with his family protested in front of the reserve police office here and subsequently approached Superintendent of Police Sarangi. The SP then directed reserve police Inspector Soumendra Nayak to conduct an investigation October 25 last year. When asked about the delay in completing the probe, Nayak put the blame on the complainants, saying they were not cooperating in the investigation.
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