Public notice served on absconded Orissa DGP

Bhubaneswar, Dec 8: The Orissa police have served a public notice on suspended Director General of Police (DGP) Home Guard B B Mohanti asking him to surrender before January 10 or he will be declared a ''proclaimed offender''.

The notice was pasted at Mr Mohanti's official residence at the Cantonment Road in Cuttack and other places yesterday following a directive by a Jaipur court which issued a ''standing warrant'' against the senior police officer and his rape-convict-son Bitti Mohanti, who jumped parole on December four and since then is absconding.

The senior Mohanti, accused of abetting his son jump the parole, has been booked under section 120, 216 and 225 of the IPC. The Jaipur police, in the past, had made at least four attempts during their visit to Orissa to nab him but in vain.

The former DGP, who has been all along avoiding arrest, was suspended from service after he went into hiding in August without any intimation to the government on his whereabouts.

He has been embroiled in a controversy for helping his son, accused and convicted by a trial court in Jaipur on charges of raping a German woman, jump parole on December four last year.

The senior Orissa police officer had all along been maintaining a stand that he was not aware of his son's whereabouts and he had not released him on parole bond, something, the Jaipur police strongly refuted.

A senior police official here said the public notice asking the former DGP to surrender before January 10, was also pasted at several public places in Cuttack, including the SDJM court.

The Jaipur court had issued the ''standing warrant'' against Mohanti after the Orissa police pleaded before the court that they had raided several places both inside and outside Orissa but failed to nab him and his son.

The Orissa government has already drawn disciplinary proceedings against him, but neither the proceedings nor the suspension order could be served on him as he remained elusive and underground since August, a senior police officer said.

UNI