Bhubaneswar, August 21: Officials from the Odisha Vigilance Department apprehended a tehsildar and a health manager on corruption charges in separate incidents.
On Thursday, a team from the Vigilance Department intercepted the vehicle of Murali Dhar Urmal, the tehsildar-cum-sub-registrar of Lathikata, in Sundargarh district. They seized ₹5 lakh in cash, suspected to be illicitly acquired. The operation was based on credible information regarding Urmal’s accumulation of large sums of money from various sources.
The vigilance team stopped Urmal near Rajbasa Chowk in Lathikata as he traveled in a rented government Scorpio from his office to his residence in Rourkela. During the investigation, officials recovered the entire amount, along with the vehicle, which has been confiscated.
Following this, the authorities conducted simultaneous searches at three locations: Urmal’s residence in Rourkela, his ancestral home in Karamdihi under the Sundargarh Sadar police jurisdiction, and his office at the Lathikata tehsil. The accused has been taken into custody for further questioning.
In a separate case, the Vigilance Department arrested Manoj Ranjan Nayak, the block program manager at the Kujang Community Health Center (CHC) in Jagatsinghpur district. Nayak was accused of demanding and accepting a bribe of ₹20,000 from a health worker, threatening to retire them prematurely based on discrepancies in their age as recorded on their Aadhaar card.
The health worker, who had two years remaining in service according to their school leaving certificate, reported the harassment to the vigilance officials after feeling cornered. Acting on the complaint, the vigilance team set a trap and caught Nayak red-handed while accepting the bribe.
The team seized the entire illicit amount from him. Following the sting operation, searches were conducted at Nayak’s residence in Gopalpur (Raj Nagar Patna) in Cuttack district and his office at the Kujang Balwadi center in Jagatsinghpur. Nayak has also been arrested.
– MS/
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