The police here arrested four persons, including a businessman, for irregularities in paddy purchase in the Sahaspu market yard.
The arrested persons are businessman Ashok Agrawal, programmer of Sambalpur CSO office Subhashis Paikray, assistant programmer of Bargarh CSO office Bidyadhar Bhoi and data entry operator Jyotikanta Mishra.
The officials of the CSO office manipulated different documents and even hacked the secret password for issue of fake land patta to encourage ghost sale of paddy in the market yard. They were arrested under Sections 420, 182, 468, 471, and 120 of IPC.
The matter of corruption in the Sahaspur market yard was a matter of discussion everywhere.
But farmers of the area are still of the opinion that there are some officials in the senior posts in the department who are equally responsible but the police have not arrested them. Now a demand is gaining momentum to arrest of the higher authorities immediately.
Meanwhile, Sambalpur Collector Samarth Verma assured that nobody involved in the scam will be spared. “Since SP of the district AK Singh is personally looking after the case, there is no question of any irregularity in the investigation,” Verma said.
Members of a farmers’ organisation alleged that the case comes under the cyber crime since password of the Civil Supply department was hacked. And it is not possible without the help of the senior officials.
Hence, the investigation of the case will be incomplete without arrest of the persons involved in password hacking, they opined.