Bhubaneswar: A day after it raided the properties of Odisha industrialist Mahimananda Mishra, including his house and office at different locations in Cuttack and Paradip, the CBI on Friday arrested four persons, including a top official of Paradip Port, in connection with a bribery case registered in New Delhi.
Those arrested are Saroj Kumar Das, Chief Mechanical Engineer of Paradip Port, contractor Sumant Rout, KCT Group’s Manager (Port Operations) Sankha Subhra Mitra and Orissa Stevedores Limited (OSL) DGM (Operations) Surya Narayan Sahoo.
They were taken to the Capital Hospital for medical examination before being forwarded to court.
The CBI also questioned Mishra’s sons Chandan Mishra and Charchit Mishra.
According to reports, Charchit, the Director of OSL, was grilled at his residence in Cuttack on Thursday. Chandan was quizzed at his Bhubaneswar office.
On Thursday, CBI sleuths quizzed Das and Rout at The 100 Millions (guest house of the port). The senior official had allegedly accepted bribe from the contractor. While Rs 80 lakh was seized from the office of the engineer, another Rs 50 lakh was seized from the contractor.
Notably, the industrialist was granted bail by the Orissa High Court in November 2019 in connection with the murder of Mahendra Swain, an executive of Hyderabad-based stevedoring company Seaways Shipping and Logistics Limited. He is accused of hiring killers to eliminate him.
He was arrested by Thailand’s Immigration Police in Bangkok on December 25, 2016. According to the Bangkok Post, Mishra along with some of his family members and a handful of security guards had entered Thailand on a tourist visa from Nepal. Odisha police too had confirmed that Mishra and his aide Basant Bal had escaped to Kathmandu on a 15-day tourist visa after hiding at several places in the country following Swain’s murder.
