Tuesday, July 07, 2015

Crime Fighters: CBI Officials Turn Into 'Bhakts' To Nab Fraudster BLiving As 'Sadhu Badrinath'

By Alok Kumar
Interestingly the accused was located by the probe agency after it learnt about a suspected Facebook profile by the name Swami Durgesh Mahraj, which was believed to be run by the accused himself.

A man living as a sadhu at an ashram located right opposite to the historical Badrinath Temple of Uttarakhand, was finally arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation after absconding for over 12 years.

Interestingly the accused was located by the probe agency after it learnt about a suspected Facebook profile by the name Swami Durgesh Mahraj, which was believed to be run by the accused himself.


Thrown off by the appearance of the accused, whom the CBI identified as Durjodhan Mishra, investigators in order to verify that he was the same person, became his bhakts or disciples for over two weeks, listening to his prachaar (sermons) along with thousands of other followers. It was only after a period of time that the officials were able to confirm the identity of the accused who had grown a long hair and beard in order to deceive possible investigators.


Strangely, Mishra's Facebook account, which appears to have been opened in 2010, barely had any activity until March this year. On his Facebook account he had shared his personal mobile number with 153 people on his friends list. His friends list which is full of people from a range of professions, also enlists a number of foreigners. Mishra, like his, 'followers' seem to be a regular at performing yoga, as made evident by the Facebook pages he has liked. Mishra, the CBI said, is fluent in Hindi, Bengali, Maitheli and Bhojpuri languages and communicates with his followers in the same.

According to officials of the CBI, Mishra, a native of Madhubani in Bihar, was working as an agent in Kolkata in 2003 and served as a liaison between the postal department and people seeking Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) certificates. It was during this period when he forged 263 such certificates worth Rs2.63 crores and escaped taking the money. The West Bengal postal department officially lodged a complaint and the case was registered by the CBI on December 2, 2004 and a chargesheet was filed in the same month. However the accused remained untraceable. According to officials, he had then stayed briefly in Rajasthan where he brought some property and then finally moved to Uttarakhand.

"We got a clue that the family of said absconder was residing at Bikaneer and Jodhpur in Rajasthan. On enquiry in the locality, it could be gathered that his wife, along with his three children, was staying there since 2006 but her husband never visited their address in Jodhpur. It was found that calls used to be received on every night in the phone of his wife were from two particular phone numbers of Badrinath," said a senior CBI official. According to sources, the numbers belonged to two female followers of Mishra.

"After connecting the dots, a team was sent to Badrinath to get embedded among the followers in the Manav Vikas Ashram where Mishra was also a trustee. Days later he was nabbed," CBI official added. The arrested accused was produced before the Designated Court, at Kolkata on Monday and was remanded to Judicial Custody till July 20.

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