Armed goons abduct govt officer in Sambalpur rly stn, force him to flee district

Bhubaneswar: The information and public relations officer (DIPRO) of Sambalpur district was allegedly abducted by a group of four armed men in broad daylight last Friday, and released only after he gave a written undertaking that he would go on leave until he was transferred elsewhere. The officer has since returned to his home in Bhubaneswar.

DIPRO Hemant Nayak joined his posting in Sambalpur on February 20, at the end of a long leave he had taken after being transferred out of Dhenkanal on December 27. After attending a government meeting in Bhubaneswar on February 27, the officer had taken the Bhubaneswar-Balangir Intercity Express back to Sambalpur on Friday, and had just got into his car around 11.30 am when the four men forced themselves into the vehicle.

“I don’t know them. They were speaking in the local dialect. One of them had a Mouser. They forced my driver to take the vehicle towards Ring Road and insisted that I sign a piece of paper saying I would not work in the district. In fear, I signed it, after which they got off the car. When I returned to my office, I got a threat call on the landline and was asked to leave Sambalpur or face consequences,” Nayak said, adding that he drove back to Bhubaneswar the same evening.

“I informed the director of my department, the collector and the SP of the incident. Since the collector was not in his chamber (located in the same campus as Nayak’s office), I sent him a message. Moments later, an inspector contacted me and I described the ordeal over the phone,” Nayak recalled.

While collector (Sambalpur) Subham Saxena could not be contacted, SP Kanwar Vishal Singh said a probe had been started. “The officer, however, is yet to register a police complaint,” Singh said.

Director (I&PR), Krupasindhu Mishra, confirmed that Nayak had spoken to him on February 28. “I asked him to report the matter to the collector and police. Since the allegation is criminal in nature, it is for police to probe. We, too, are examining the matter at the department level,” Mishra said.


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