Baripada: Police have arrested a college lecturer for allegedly duping a contractor of more than Rs 7 lakh in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district.
According to sources, the accused, identified as Manoj Kumar Majhi, a lecturer in Psychology in Jhadeswari College at Udala in the district, had introduced himself as a Vigilance SP to Manoj Kumar Choudhury, a private contractor in Rayagada in 2023.
Majhi had assured the contractor of awarding a contract for construction work in his office and demanded Rs 10 lakh to facilitate it. He had reportedly shown some documents to Choudhury to authenticate his assurance.
Choudhury gave Rs 5 lakh to the lecturer through online mode and Rs 2.60 lakh in cash. After taking the money, Majhi remained elusive about the contract. He also did not return the money. Finally, the contractor filed a complaint with police on May 31, 2023.
Following investigation, the police arrested Majhi and registered a case. They also recovered Rs 2.6 lakh and seized a mobile phone and six ATM cards from his possession.
The lecturer was earlier booked in cheating cases by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch and several fraud cases are pending against him in police stations in Ganjam, Puri and Mayurbhanj districts.
