Two employees of a tollgate on the National Highway-6 near Barahguda, only 4 km away from Bargarh town, decamped with Rs42 lakh of the tollgate collection on Tuesday early morning. They were Alok Kumar Singh and Dharmendra Kumar Singh of the tollgate managed by the Ashoka Builders.
According to reports, the toll collected from vehicles could not be deposited in the bank from Saturday onwards due to consecutive holidays. The whole cash was kept in a treasury of Alok and Dharmendra’s room.
In the morning, tollgate assistant manager Nikhil Wagha said, when the cashier went to Dharmendra’s room to bring the money to deposit in bank, he found that Alok and Dharmendra were not present in the room and the money had disappeared from the treasury. Security in-charge of the tollgate Arjun Sahu lodged an FIR at the Bargarh Town police station in this regard.
Bargarh SDPO Nrupacharan Bansna said the police have started investigating into the matter after detaining four persons. “We have started a manhunt to nab the two employees,” he added.
In another incident, three motorcycle-borne criminals snatched away cash of about Rs15 lakh from two employees of a highway tollgate at Srirampur on National Highway-5 under the Barchana police station in Jajpur district when the latter were going by a four-wheeler to deposit the money in a bank.
The miscreants attacked the tollgate employees with sharp weapons and snatched the bag containing the cash by breaking the window glass of their car. They also threw chili powder at the employees.
One of the employees suffered serious injuries and was shifted to the Community Health Centre (CHC) at Barchana. The miscreants fled after committing the crime. Search was on to arrest them, police said.