KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, Dec 29: Though a staff of an ATP agency hired by Jharkhand Bijli Vitaran Nigam Ltd (JBVNL) had alleged two bike-borne criminals to have looted Rs 9,00,000 from his Scooty in Sidhgora on Monday afternoon, the alleged loot victim and one of his colleagues are suspected to have conspired the loot themselves.
After an initial investigation, the police picked up the alleged loot victim Jitendra Patro and his colleague Sukhen Oraon for interrogation on suspicion of swindling Rs 9,00,000 by conspiring fake loot.
It may be recalled that Jitendra Patro (36), who works as an ATP operator for a private agency hired by JBVNL, allegedly lost Rs 9,00,000 that he was going to deposit from the power board’s Surya Temple-based ATP centre to a bank in Bistupur on Monday afternoon.
A resident of Mango had alleged two bike-borne criminals had looted the money near Road No 16 of Sidhgora, resulting in injuries to him on being hit by the criminals.
In this connection, the Sidhgora thana OC, Ranjit Kumar had initiated a probe having registered a case against two unidentified persons on the statement given by Patro.
The OC, Ranjit Kumar said from the investigation carried out so far it appeared to be a fake loot.
“Firstly, the private ATP agency had transit insurance as carrying cases from the Sidhgora and Birsanagar ATP centres was a regular affair. Secondly, the ATP agency was supposed to start the work of carrying cash collected from the JBVNL’s ATP centres to the bank through a security vehicle from January 2, 2023. Thirdly, the alleged loot victim continues to change his statement regarding the way the money was looted. Moreover, the alleged loot victim had escaped with a minor injury in his leg that too in a road accident, ” said Kumar while talking to lagatar24.com.
According to police, Patro while riding on his Scooty to the bank had hit an autorickshaw after colliding with a road divider and was not hit by two bike-borne criminals as claimed by him.
They added that after the road mishap took place, Patro had informed the Surya Temple-based ATP centre, leading the supervisor Pradeep Mahto to send another ATP operator Sukhen Oraon to the mishap spot so that to collect the money from Patro and get it deposited the money in the bank.
“Sukhen came to the mishap spot and opened the Scooty’s dickey having taken the key from Patro, but he allegedly found no bag containing the cash as such. Then the two went back to the Surya Temple-based ATP centre to check whether the cash bag was left there mistakenly. On finding no bag there also, the two ATP operators went over to the MGM medical college hospital for treatment of leg injury, ” said a police officer.
Furthermore, if Sukhen opened Scooty’s dickey to find the cash bag missing, then how could this be possible?
“Did the criminals hand over the key to Patro having locked the two-wheeler’s dickey after taking out the cash bag? ” quipped the police officer.
Moreover, the alleged crime scene remains bustling with commuters and the people around had confirmed a road mishap only.
As there is no CCTV camera around the police have to rely on the statements made by the people and the ground reality only. The police are, therefore, keeping their fingers crossed having kept the two ATP operators as suspects.
