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Odisha school official accused of murder also got govt funds for his institutions
A 2014 CAG report red-flagged spending by Odisha authorities on road infrastructure leading to educational institutions funded by Gobind Sahu.
BHUBANESWAR: While the Odisha police continue to interrogate Gobind Sahu, president of a school managing committee for the second day on charges of killing Mamita Meher, a teacher at his school in Kalahandi district, official documents suggest that Sahu was a steady beneficiary of government largesse despite running a private school in the sleepy village of Mahaling.
The 52-year-old civil contractor-turned-education entrepreneur was arrested from a sugarcane field in Bolangir district on Tuesday. On Wednesday, police claimed that he confessed to having strangled 26-year-old woman teacher Mamita Meher in his car on October 8 after she allegedly threatened to expose his “extramarital” affairs. Meher worked as the principal in charge of Sunshine English medium school in Mahaling village, one of the three educational institutes started by Sahu in the region.
Buried teacher’s remains in school stadium
“It was a premeditated murder and Sahu had a pit dug in an under-construction stadium in the school two days before killing Meher. He burnt the body with petrol and wood and then buried it in the pit. Later, he went with Mehr’s family members to lodge a complaint with local police station about the woman going missing,” said deputy inspector general of police Dipak Kumar. Police are yet to find out the teacher’s mobile phone, considered vital evidence in the case.
On Thursday, police arrested Sahu’s associate Radhe who allegedly dug the pit before the murder.
While the horrific details of the murder are gradually emerging, the Opposition has amped up pressure on the ruling Biju Janata Dal and the state’s minister of state for home Dibya Shankar Mishra over his close links to Govind Sahu who reinvented himself as an educationist in recent years.
Government records indicate that Sahu’s institutions were also major beneficiaries of government funds, often in violation of government guidelines.
A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in 2014 said a cement concrete road was built under PMGSY to the science college run by him at Mahaling from the ₹4 lakh sanctioned by Western Odisha Development Council (WODC), the government body started in 2000 for creation of community-based projects in 10 western Odisha districts infamous for starvation, child sale and labour migration. The CAG audit found that in 2012-13, WODC sanctioned another ₹6 lakh cement concrete road under PMGSY to the women’s hostel as well construction of sidewall of the hostel.
The CAG report said the two projects were inadmissible as they were executed depriving needy sectors.
WODC records show it sanctioned ₹5 lakh in 2015-16 for the construction of a library hall of the science college though it was an unaided college. In 2020-21, WODC sanctioned ₹10 lakh for building a cement concrete road to the college campus while another ₹5 lakh was given for the construction of an additional classroom at the science degree college.
Since 2010-11 when Gobind Sahu first set up the higher secondary school in Mahaling with the help of local politicians, he has been getting steady government funds including MPLAD and MLALAD funds.
‘He got preferential treatment’
“Though the three educational institutes run by Sahu are not eligible for any government grants, he has been getting government help from different sources including WODC due to his proximity with leaders cutting across party lines. Ministers visit the college regularly and the college has no problem in adding more and more seats, while we are running from pillar to post,” said Kishore Satpathy, who runs a higher secondary school and one of Kalahandi district’s 21 unaided colleges.
Satpathy said of the 2,320 science seats in higher secondary streams on offer in Kalahandi district, Sahu’s school alone cornered 488 seats, a little more than 20% of the total seats. “In terms of science seats, his college has the second-highest number of seats in the entire KBK region,” he said, alleging that “this would not have been possible without political patronage”.
WODC chairman Asit Tripathy and chief executive officer Prem Chandra Chaudhury did not respond to calls to respond to allegations that Sahu’s institutions received preferential treatment.
Started as a contractor
Sahu started out as a civil contractor and ventured into the education sector in 2010 when he set up the Mahalinga Anchalika Mahavidyalaya, a higher secondary school near the Kalahandi-Bolangir border, with help from local politicians. Those who know him said he liked the respectability that came with the enterprise. He couldn’t hold on to it for too long.
Role in paper leak
In 2013, he was accused of leaking chemistry question papers in the annual higher secondary examination, has been charge sheeted in the case and faces trial.
For Gobind Sahu who was known to have friends in the right places, this was just a temporary setback. In 2016, he started the Sunshine English medium school which was considered among the most sought-after place for students in the area.
Flaunted political links
A Kalahandi politician said for someone who could pass his matriculation exam with great efforts, Sahu came to be known as an educationist who was able to access funds from WODC, and funds available with MLAs and MPs due to his links with politicians.
In a YouTube video posted by Sahu’s higher secondary school last year, Sahu flaunts his contacts in In this context, he names minister of state for home and energy, DS Mishra, the BJD politician who the opposition is demanding should be sacked.
“He (DS Mishra) has been visiting the college regularly after becoming an MLA in 2014 and almost every month after he became a minister in 2018. He treats any problem of the college as his own. He visits our college for cultural functions and encourages the students,” Sahu is seen claiming in the video.
Calls and messages to Mishra seeking his reaction about his alleged proximity to Sahu did not get any response.
Opposition protests
Meanwhile, in Kalahandi and Bolangir districts, political protests raged on demanding Mishra’s sacking from the Naveen Patnaik government on grounds that the minister provided the political clout to Sahu. On Wednesday, National Commission for Women chairperson Rekha Sharma wrote to Naveen Patnaik demanding that Mishra and law minister Pratap Jena be sacked from the ministry as a proper police probe was not possible if they continued.
In Bolangir district, BJP activists enforced a bandh on Thursday a day after they held a similar bandh in Bhawanipatna town. Kalahandi Zilla Parishad chairperson Namita Rani Sahu alleged that Mishra often spent nights in the college run by Sahu instead of his constituents in Junagarh assembly constituency.
The deceased woman teacher’s uncle Kaushik Meher alleged that she may have been killed over not just Sahu’s extramarital affairs but a flesh trade racket.
“Mamita confronted Gobinda Sahu, who is the president of Sunshine School’s managing committee and one of the founders of Anchalika Mahavidyalaya about the sex racket running in the hostel. She had a heated altercation with Sahu a year ago over the activities in the hostel,” said Kaushik Meher, her uncle.
The ruling BJD said the mere association with Sahu did not prove DS Mishra’s complicity in the crime. “Leaders of all political parties attend functions organised by educational and other institutions. But a wrong committed by a person of an institution cannot be linked to a person who attended a function in that institution as a guest,” said Pramila Mallick, BJD leader.
