Operation Blackspot: Odisha Vigilance on the lookout for mastermind

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Sep 2:

The Vigilance sleuths today conducted raids at three places in the state as part of the probe into Odisha’s four ruling party legislators seeking bribe to help set up industries in their constituencies.

The members of the anti-corruption wing raided the city office of www.india24x7.tv –a news portal which conducted the sting operation where four MLAs of the ruling Biju Janata Dal were caught seeking bribe to facilitate set up power and textile industries.

Besides, raids were conducted on the house of a cameraman Saroj Kamila at Kamarda in Balasore district and Chandrasekharpur area here. Three laptops, three hard drives, five pen drives and a recorder were seized following the raids.

Following the raids, the editor of the portal Ravi Sharma and cameraman Saroj Kamila have reportedly gone into hiding.

According to reports, Vigilance is after the mastermind of the sting operation as he reportedly possesses proof of several other BJD MLAs striking deals.

While the expose aired by Kanak News recently has dented the image of the ruling BJD, the regional party is trying to get hold of the owner of the portal to prevent further damage, sources revealed.

Notably, the four BJD MLAs— Susant Kumar Behera (Chhendipada), Seemarani Nayak (Hindol), Anam Nayak (Bhawanipatna) and Bijay Kumar Nayak (Karanjia)—were caught on camera seeking bribe, which was refused by the tainted legislators.