By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: A team of EOW on Monday conducted search in the office of Sambad newspaper and seized some important documents related to EOW Case no 24/2023 U/S506/467/468/471/420/120-B IPC. The case has been registered on the allegation that large numbers of employees of Sambad were forced to take personal loans under threat.
The loan amount running into crores was not given to the employees concerned but allegedly used by their employer company Eastern Media Limited Bhubaneswar. The above mentioned case was registered on 16th September 2023 against Smt Baijyanti Kar, Sri Soumya Ranjan Pattnayak and others on the report of complainant/victim Sri Asim Mohapatra, an ex-employee of Sambad/ Eastern Media Limited Bhubaneswar.
In the complaint, Sri Mohapatra has made serious allegation of bank loan fraud involving cheating, forgery and criminal intimidation. The victim was allegedly forced by the accused persons to sign on some bank loan forms against his will and against his paying capacity. He was threatened that if he did not follow the dictate then he would lose his job. Under this threat and pressure he was forced to sign many blank forms/documents including some blank cheques by the accused persons.
At that time he did not know the details but later came to know that a loan of Rs 5 Lakh was taken in his name but actually it was used by Sambad/ Eastern Media Limited, Bhubaneswar. He did not get a single penny out of this loan. He was forced to sign for such loans on two different occasions in two different banks.
The FIR alleges that more than 300 employees of Sambad/ Eastern Media limitedhave been forced to sign on forged documents and about Rs 50 Crores have thus been fraudulently secured by Sri Soumya Ranjan Pattnayak using these forged papers and threatening staff of Sambad.
During course of investigation, so far, some vital witnesses have been examined. During the search in Sambad office a number of incriminating documents have been collected. So far 15-20 ex-employees of Sambad have come forward with complaint of such forceful loans taken against their names using forged documents. Further investigation is on. EOW is investigating into the case in a free and fair manner.
A team of senior and professionally competent investigators has been deployed to ensure proper investigation into the case and to unearth the truth.
It has come to our notice that today a TV channel ( Kanka TV) has been falsely running a story that EOW team at Sambad premises is saying that they are under pressure ( “Chapo re achhi” ) whereas the EOW officer is actually saying “ Chapokichi nahi”. But the TV channel has distorted the facts and spreading lies. During entire raid/ search, EOW officers were very polite to Sambad officials. Search was conducted ensuring that there is no inconvenience to the staff and without disturbing the daily work of the newspaper.
