Rs 3 crore cash seized in Odisha govt officer's residence raids

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The vigilance wing of Odisha Police on Friday recovered over Rs 3 crore in cash during raids at the residences of a government official at different places in the state, officials said.

Sleuths of the department found the huge amount of cash in possession of Prasanta Kumar Rout, an Odisha Administrative Officer (OAS) posted as the additional sub-collector in Nabarangpur district, during multiple raids at his residences in Bhubaneswar, Nabarangpur and other places, they said.

The accused officer's wife allegedly threw six cash-stashed cartons to their neighbour's terrace at Kanan Vihar here and requested them to hide the currency, when the personnel of the wing arrived there, the officials said.

The boxes were later recovered from the neighbour's house, and multiple counting machines were used to count the cash, they said.

Another Rs 89.5 lakh in cash along with gold ornaments were recovered from Rout's Nabarangpur residence, the officials said.

"This is the second biggest recovery of cash from a government official in the state. In April 2022, we had recovered Rs 3.41-crore cash during raids on properties of Kartikeswar Roul, who was posted as an assistant engineer in Minor Irrigation Division in Ganjam district," an official statement issued by the Vigilance Department said.

The raids were still continuing till the filing of this report.

As many as nine teams of the department were engaged in the searches, it said.

Rout was arrested in 2018 for allegedly receiving a bribe of Rs 1 lakh from a panchayat executive officer while he was serving as a BDO in Sundargarh district.

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