Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch Tuesday claimed to have collected vital evidence against the alleged loan scam by the authorities and owner of Eastern Media Limited.
“Investigation conducted/evidence collected, so far, revealed a huge, well & meticulously planned scam to get the loan amounts sanctioned in crores of rupees using fraudulent method of cheating, forgery and coercion,” EOW stated in a press note.
The investigating agency also said that interrogation of several victims also corroborated the allegations of complainant Asim Mohapatra, a former district correspondent of Odia daily Sambad. The agency also revealed about seizing huge credible documents related to allegations including loan documents during the raid taken place at Sambad office in Rasulgarh Monday.
“More than 350 Sambad/EML employees have taken loan from Odisha Gramya Bank, IRC village branch alone over the last few years,” EOW sources revealed.
Meanwhile, the investigating agency suspects that the actual figure is expected to be much higher as the loan taken from other banks like SBI and others are yet to be scrutinised. All the 350 employees allegedly availed loans to the tune of Rs5 lakh each under easy schemes of the banks citing grounds like house building/repair.
The agency also found that Sambad/EML authorities secured the loans producing forged salary certificates almost twice the actual salary of the victims.
As per the press note, the EMI paid was almost equal to the net salary of employees. Some employees have been forced to take loans 2-3 times too.
“Employees are not given salary slip. EMIs are paid by Sambad/EML in 60 installments. Strangely, in many cases, EMIs are paid by Sambad/EML even if employees have left/resigned/removed from the company months before,” said the EOW.
Notably, a 12-member EOW team, along with officials of Commissionerate Police, Monday conducted searches at the Sambad office over the allegations of loan fraud, cheating, forgery and criminal intimidation against the proprietor, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, and others levelled by Asim Mohapatra.
A case (24/23) has been registered under Sections 506, 467, 468, 471, 420 and 120-B of IPC against Patnaik and others September 16.
Gyan Ranjan Mahapatra, OP
