E-Paper
Odisha SI recruitment case mastermind arrested from Indo-Nepal border
Large-scale irregularities were unearthed in the SI recruitment process conducted by the Odisha Police Recruitment Board leading to its cancellation last month
The Odisha Police CID on Sunday brought back the alleged mastermind in the police sub-inspector (SI) recruitment case, Shankar Prusty, from Uttarakhand, where he was arrested near Indo-Nepal border after months on the run.
Prusty, the owner of Panchsoft Technologies, had reportedly been attempting to flee to Dubai when a special CID team intercepted him on the Indo-Nepal border late Saturday night with help from Uttarakhand police.
The arrest caps a multi-state manhunt that began soon after large-scale irregularities were unearthed in the SI recruitment process conducted by the Odisha Police Recruitment Board (OPRB) leading to its cancellation last month. The state government has already handed the investigation in the case to the CBI considering its inter-state links.
CID officials said Prusty was flown from New Delhi to Bhubaneswar under heavy security on Sunday morning and taken straight to the state CID headquarters in Cuttack for questioning. His arrest memo and transit procedures were completed in Delhi before departure.
It was Prusty who masterminded the entire question leak operation with another accused Muna Mohanty, who has already been arrested. Mohanty and Prusty worked in tandem to leak the question papers from the day it was prepared. Mohanty’s agents collected original certificates and blank cheques from aspirants in exchange for question papers. Each deal allegedly cost candidates between ₹20 lakh and ₹25 lakh while Shankar Prusty ran multiple fake online test centres in Bhubaneswar, Raghunathpur, Berhampur, Balasore, Puri, Gajapati, Cuttack, and Bhawanipatna that were reportedly used to facilitate pre-exam manipulation and monitor candidates.
In SI recruitment test, the candidates were taken to hotels near Odisha border where they were to be tutored on the leaked questions before coming back to Odisha for writing the entrance test on the same set of questions. The transactions of the question leak mastermind with the candidates were being done through WhatsApp chats, digital wallets, and encrypted files.
Prusty, however, denied all charges. “These are baseless allegations. I have full faith in the court and will soon get bail. I have no link with Muna Mohanty or any of the accused candidates,” he said, adding that he had approached both the Orissa high court and the Supreme Court seeking justice.
CID officials said Prusty had been moving across several states—Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand—while using multiple SIM cards and encrypted digital channels to evade detection. Acting on intelligence inputs, investigators tracked his movements to a location close to the Nepal border, where he was allegedly preparing to leave for Dubai.
So far, over a hundred aspirants have been arrested in connection with the case, many of whom have since been granted bail. CBI, which would now take up the case, is likely to examine the financial trail to establish the scale of the cash-for-seat operation and identify other possible collaborators.
