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Last chance for Mahanti to surrender

CUTTACK: “Surrender or else you are proclaimed as an offender.” These are the writings on the wall for beleaguered Orissa DGP rank officer B. B. Mahanti who is absconding for last four months evading police arrest in connection with a criminal case filed against him by Rajasthan police.

Following orders from a chief judicial magistrate of Jaipur, the Cuttack police have pasted notices at public places here in the city asking the senior IPS officer to surrender before a specified court by a specified date. This is perhaps the last chance given to the 59-year-old officer who has been already placed under suspension, to escape from being declared a “proclaimed offender”.

The copies of notice pasted at bus stands, railway station, a busy marketplace in the city and in front of his official residence reads: “You are directed to appear on or before January 10, 2008 before the court of additional chief judicial magistrate, Jaipur, Rajasthan.”

“The public notices have been pasted following directions from the Rajasthan court to the Cuttack district administration”, said the Cantonment police station inspector Rabi Satapathy.

The Cuttack police had intimated the Rajasthan court on November 15 that the DGP and his rape convict son Bitihotra were untraceable and counsel for the Orissa Government had urged the court to take appropriate steps to declare the fugitive father-son duo as absconders and attach their properties.

While Bitihotra is absconding since jumping parole in December 2006, his father has gone into hiding since August this year. The convicted son was undergoing RI for seven years for raping a German tourist and his father was criminal charge for aiding and abetting his son’s escape. The Rajasthan court had issued NBWs against the two and Cuttack police were requested by their Rajasthan counterparts to execute the NBWs.

After the proclamation period is over, the court may start property attachment process by ordering to attach any property, movable or immovable, or both, belonging to the proclaimed person under section 83 of CrPC, say legal experts here.

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