Industry officer caught in vigilance net at Jharsuguda Railway station

Senior government officer industry department was forwarded to the judicial custody on Tuesday by the Vigilance police after a team had caught him red handed on the previous evening at Jharsuguda railway station while he was accepting bribe of Rs.10, 000/- from an entrepreneur to clear loan file . Vigilance sources said, the officer, identified as Netrananda Dandapat was presently posted as the assistance manager of DIC in Jharsuguda district had demanded a bribe of Rs.50 thousand from Sabil Ahamed of Brajarajnagar who had applied for a loan to set up his garment manufacturing unit at his home town. The accused officer was also threatened to drop the loan file incase he (Sabil) failed to oblige with the illegal gratification. Sabil agreed to give Rs.10 thousand as advance and rest amount after receiving the loan after the threatening of the officer.

“We drew a plan to trap the officer when Sabil contacted us and disclosed the fact. As per the direction of our SP (Vigilance) AK Sahu, we proceeded to Jharsuguda on Monday evening and waited for right the moment to trap the accused”, vigilance inspector Prabir Tripathy said while talking to this correspondent on Tuesday.  

According to him, accused Dandapat asked the complainant to come to Jharsuguda railway station to give the money as he was going to Bamra, his native village. Later he was caught by the vigilance team when he was accepting the bribe money from the complainant at Jharsuguda railway station. Vigilance sources revealed that the same officer was earlier had also arrested in a bribery case in 2007 which is sub-judiced in the court of law.  The vigilance team conducted raids on his official house at Jharsuguda and native house at Bamra (in Sambalpur district) after the trap but the investigating police refused to divulge any thing detail about the raid. “Since the raid continues till Tuesday morning, we have not yet estimated it. So right now we are unable to give detail about it”, inspector Tripathy said.