Odia film producer arrested for land fraud

BHUBANESWAR: Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch on  Friday arrested Odia film producer Anam Charan Sahoo on charges of land fraud. Sahoo has produced films like Tu Achu Ta Mun Achi, among others.

Sahoo was the power of attorney  holder of chit fund firm Seven Hills Estates Limited. Subhransu  Sekhar Senapati of Bhubaneswar, an advocate, had lodged a cheating complaint with EOW alleging that Seven Hills had duped about 200 gullible investors on the pretext of providing them plots in the city.
Senapati alleged that Seven Hills’s managing director Mukta Charan Srinivas was hand in glove with Sahoo and M/s Lingaraj Infrastructure Private Limited.Subsequently,  the agency had registered a case in 2016.

According to EOW officers, Srinivas and his other associates had handed over the registered sale deeds of a land under Pipili Tehsil to Senapati and other potential  buyers between 2003 and 2006. However, Seven Hills and Sahoo had later executed the sale deed of the same land in favour of Lingaraj Infrastructure. Several investors in and around Berhampur had also earlier lodged cheating complaints against Seven Hills and about 24 cases were registered against the firm.

“We had earlier arrested Srinivas and two directors of Lingaraj Infrastructure Rohit Saraf and Sajjan Kumar Surekha in 2016 in connection with the case. We apprehended Sahoo recently and produced him in a court in Cuttack on Friday,” a EOW officer said.