By Biswanath Dash
BHUBANESWAR: STF arrested the mastermind of the Thuggery/ Cheating/ impersonation case namely Kanhu Charan Pradhan. Earlier arrested Kishore Mishra and some others were working in close association and under his headship. He is a resident of Tangi, Khurda but has been living in Bhubaneswar. He is a graduate.
Earlier he used to run a liquor shop. This refers to STF case no 15/2023. This case was initially registered at Koraput Town PS vide case no- 122/2023, 419/420/465/468/470/471/34 IPC, Dated25.04.2023. Later the investigation was taken over by STF. Several cases havebeen registered against Kanhu in the past. He has been involved in at least fourmore cases. Many people had saved his number as secretary/ Additional secretary etc.
Expensive mobile phones, forged/fake Govt notification/ orders and other incriminating documents have been seized from him. He had fled to Thailand andhad recently returned to Odisha. It is also suspected that this group had got published some fake job advertisement in some newspapers. This group used to cheat/ extort people claiming to be RTI activists and alsofooling people that they have close proximity with senior officers and can getthem crusher license, liquor license, transfer/posting etc. This group is indulgingin Thuggery/ Cheating/ impersonation at various places in Odisha.
It was alsonoticed that this group uses some mule bank accounts including some accounts ofdead persons. They trick people by saving their numbers as some senior officersand when people verify it on ‘True-caller” they start trusting them as genuine.Further investigation is on.
