Something fishy about rape suspect’s time on the run
Suspicion lingers that Mohanty may have received help in evading detection
Thiruvananthapuram: A bunch of uneasy questions have been raised following the dramatic arrest of Bitti Mohanty, son of former Odisha director-general of police P.B. Mohanty, in Madayi, in Kerala’s Kannur district, where he was working at a leading public sector bank under a false identity.
Bitti Mohanty, convicted of raping a German woman in 2006, had been sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for the crime but went missing only seven months into his sentence after being granted parole to see his ailing mother.
It is believed he fled to Puttaparthi in Andhra Pradesh, where managed to make forged certificates and resurfaced as Raghav Rajan before getting a job with the bank.
His cover fell apart last week when an anonymous letter reached the State Bank of Travancore’s Madayi branch where he was working as a probationary officer trainee for close to a year, stating that Mohanty was a rape-case convict who had gone missing while on parole.
The bank promptly contacted the state police who took him into custody. It is expected that police in Rajasthan, where he committed the crime and was sentenced, will soon take custody of him.
Mohanty’s arrest not only shocked the bank and the general public; it also throws up several questions.
Many members of the public believe it is almost incredulous that someone could forge certificates and write a bank probationary examination, pass the exam and be recruited without anyone cross-checking his credentials.
Questions have also been raised about the whereabouts of the real Raghav Rajan from Andhra Pradesh whose name Mohanty has taken on as initial reports indicate that the name was not one Mohanty cooked up.
There are also questions raised about how Mohanty managed to get admission to a management institute for his post graduation, under a false identity.
Mohanty’s arrest has brought the Kerala police into national limelight again, following the arrest of north India-based criminal Bunty Chor after a housebreak in the Kerala capital earlier this year.
