After smelling rat in the State Government-Seashore Group ‘nexus’ in some projects, the CBI probing the chit fund scam has taken the case of Seashore Group’s fraud seriously and started investigating deeply by conducting simultaneous raids at 18 places in the State, New Delhi and Mumbai on Tuesday to get further evidences against the company’s fraud.
As many as 10 CBI teams raided several places in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Angul, Titilagarh and Rourkela in the State since early morning.
A team conducted raid at the houses of Rajya Sabha BJD-turned-Independent member and Odisha Jan Morcha (OJM) president Pyarimohan Mohapatra at Shaheed Nagar in Bhubaneswar and in New Delhi. Another team raided the residence of Mohapatra’s personal assistant (PA) AJ Thomas at Expo Tower in the Nandankanan area on the outskirts of the city.
Mohapatra said the team seized some documents pertaining to his bank accounts, account books of his party and his property documents. He sought to make it clear that it was only a search operation and he was not interrogated by the CBI.
The CBI arrested land broker Subhankar Nayak hours after conducting a raid on his house at Chandrama Apartments at Kharavel Nagar in Bhubaneswar and the residences of two retired IAS officers, including former Sports Secretary Suresh Patnaik, here.
The house of politician Chhabi Sahu in Angul district was also raided by the CBI in connection with the Seashore scam. CBI sleuths also raided the residences of former Chairman of APICOl Balakushna
Rath in Bhubaneswar and Titilagarh, besides conducting raid on Shubha Ispat in Rourkela.
In Cuttack, the probing agency raided the houses of a former Commissioner of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) and a senior official of an insurance company. The house of a relative of Seashore CMD Prashant Dash at Shikhatpur in Cuttack also raided. Besides, the CBI conducted raids at the houses and offices of several directors of the Seashore Group, senior Government officials and some political leaders till the evening, said sources.