The town police here on Monday arrested one Kamalakanta Behera, the prime accused in a cheating case involving crores of rupees.

The accused had taken money from hundreds of BEd aspirants and later, embezzled the money. The victims had known that they were duped after they were refused to sit for the BEd examination at the examination centres in Andhra Pradesh. The accused had lured them of an easy way to obtain BEd degree from the Andhra University by opening a branch office at Kendrapada.

Kendrapara Town police station IIC Pramod Kumar lenka said Behera had opened Odisha Distance College of Education (ODCE) Centre and claimed that it was authorised to take up admission in BEd course under the Andhra University.

After cheated, the victims had lodged an FIR against Behera. As a result, Kendrapara town police had registered a case bearing case no-145/14 under Section 420,34 IPC and arrested Behera while he was coming to Kendrapara town police station as per conditions imposed by the Odisha High Court in his anticipatory bail.

Notably, 114 students had enrolled in the BEd course through Behera’s centre in 2013 -14 academic session. Each of them had paid Rs81,500, including Rs65,000 as course fee besides submitting their original documents. When these students had gone to AP to appear the examination in August, the authorities had told them that their course fees had not been deposited and hence, they were debarred from the examination.

Kendrapara Town police on August 22 had registered a case against Behera and his aides Soumya Ranjan Dhal of Garapur, Ranjan Kumar Sahu of Dutial , Akash Padhihary of Mahakalapada and Trupti Manjari Sahu of Badamanatia village. Behera had managed to get anticipatory bail from the HC with several conditions. He was also found to be working as a Shiksha Sahayak (SS) in a school in the district. District Collector Pramod Kumar Das, who is the chairman of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), on September 11 had sacked him from job.