Vigilance raids houses of retired forest ranger in Odisha’s Ganjam

Aska: Separate teams of Vigilance sleuths carried out simultaneous searches at five different places associated with a forest ranger identified as Jagabandhu Padhy over DA charge in Aska notified area council (NAC) limits of Ganjam district, today.

The raids were started in the morning and are still underway as the former forest official has allegedly amassed properties disproportionate to his legal sources of income, a Vigilance source said.

The places where raids are being conducted include a house in Sunam Sahi, another near the government bus stand under Aska civic limits in the district, and three others in Bhanjanagar, Berhampur, and Bhubaneswar. A ten-member team of officials from Cuttack and Berhampur Vigilance were divided into two groups and carried out the house searches, the official stated.

Padhy was also previously under the Vigilance scanner in a disproportionate asset (DA) case.