Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) Monday conducted searches at the office of Eastern Media Limited in Rasulgarh area here in connection with a case of loan fraud, cheating, forgery and criminal intimidation against the proprietor and employees of the media house lodged by a former employee.
A 12-member team of the EOW, along with officials of Commissionerate Police, began searches at the office of Eastern Media Limited in the afternoon. The sleuths reportedly questioned the Human Resource (HR) head of daily Sambad and other staffers in the accounts section of the media house.
The searches continued till late in the evening.
Meanwhile, in a press note, the EOW stated that a case (24/23) under IPC Sections 506, 467, 468, 471, 420 and 120-B has been registered against owner of the media house, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik and others on the basis of the complaint lodged by Asim Mohapatra, an ex-employee of Sambad/ Eastern Media Limited.
“The case has been registered on the allegation that large number of employees of Sambad were forced to take personal loans under threat. The loan amount, running into crores, was not given to the employees concerned but allegedly used by their employer company, Eastern Media Limited, Bhubaneswar,” EOW stated.
Mohapatra in his complaint alleged that he was forced by the accused persons to sign on some bank loan forms against his will and paying capacity. The victim reportedly joined Sambad in 2015 as a district correspondent at a salary of Rs 12,600.
Mohapatra was allegedly threatened that he would lose his job if refused to avail the loan. The accused persons allegedly made him sign many blank forms/documents including some blank cheques.
“At that time he did not know the details but later came to know that a loan of Rs 5 lakh was taken in his name. But actually, it was used by Sambad/ Eastern Media Limited, Bhubaneswar. He did not get a single penny out of this loan. He was forced to sign for such loans on two different occasions in two different banks,” claimed EOW.
Around 300 employees of Sambad/ Eastern Media Limited have allegedly been forced to sign on forged documents and about Rs 50 crore have thus been fraudulently secured by Soumya Ranjan.
“So far 15-20 ex-employees of Sambad have come forward with complaint of such forceful loans taken against their names using forged documents,” EOW said, adding that many incriminating documents have been seized during the search.
PNN
