Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Crime Branch today took arrested Gopalpur MLA Pradeep Panigrahi on remand for two days for further probe into his alleged involvement in duping job seekers.
The Court of SDJM, Bhubaneswar has permitted the agency for a two-day remand of Panigrahi, who was lodged at the Jharpada Special Jail here.
The expelled BJD leader was arrested by the Odisha Crime Branch on December 3 under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 469, 471, 120-B of the IPC and Section 66C/66D of IT Act. Evidence came to light that Panigrahi collected money from people on behalf of Akash Pathak, son of suspended IFS officer Abhay Pathak, on the false promise of providing jobs in Tata company. This case relates to impersonation, cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and other cyber offences by Akash Kumar Pathak, the Crime Branch had earlier said.
Akash Pathak and Pradeep Panigrahi have duped many job aspirants of huge amount of money in the state, Odisha Crime Branch ADG Soumendra Priyadarshi had said. Pathak, who was slated to marry the daughter of Panigrahi, had impersonated himself as the Managing Director (MD) in-charge of Tata Motors Limited.
The Gopalpur MLA along with his associates have cheated several aspirants on job pretext saying that his son-in-law to-be works with Tata Motors Limited, the police official had said.