The Odisha Valiance police on Wednesday arrested Pratap Samal, a deputy manager of Odisha State Police Housing and Welfare Corporation Limited after the anti-corruption sleuths unearthed close to Rs 15 crore disproportionate assets amassed by him and his family members.

After marathon search and verification lasting for more than a day, the disproportionate assets unearthed so far are to the tune of Rs 14,87,41,194 which is incidentally more than 1021% of the known sources of income.

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Samal and his spouse were found in possession of huge disproportionate assets, which he couldn’t explain satisfactorily. Cases under the prevention of corruption act were registered against Samal and his spouse Sashmita. Samal was later arrested and is being forwarded to the special judge vigilance court in Bhubaneswar, said, vigilance officials.

Samal and his family members have several operative bank accounts and cumulatively, the deposits were to the tune of Rs 1.61 crore while Rs 57, 72,150 were paid as insurance premiums by them. The bank accounts have been frozen by the Vigilance department.

Yesterday Rs 38 lakh was seized from his house. So far the investigators found documents related to 25 plots belonging to him and his family members, including those in his wife Sasmita’s name.

The relative standard deviation (RSD) value of 25 plots, including registration and stamp duty, was assessed at Rs.3,41,58,412. The actual price of the plots will however be on a much higher side.

The five-storeyed palatial building at Gothapatna in Bhubaneswar was valued at Rs.3,89,60,000, as per the declaration of Samal and his wife before the Khurdha collector.

Since yesterday simultaneous raids were conducted at Samal’s Bhubaneswar office, an ancestral house at Haripur in Simulia block of Balasore, a three-storey building at IRC Village, a six-storey building located opposite of Maa Bhagabati temple near Biju Patnaik College Chowk at Jayadev Vihar, a single-storey building at Sarakantra in Khandagiri, a flat on the second floor of Narendra Villa in Jayadev Vihar and a three-storey apartment- Ananya Towers at Balisahi under Basudevpur block in Bhadrak.

A temporary residence of Samal’s associate at Ananya Towers and a house of Samal’s relative at Haripur under Simulia block of Balasore district were also scanned by the probe agency. The detailed monetary estimate and assessment of properties are still underway. The ill-gotten wealth has so far been found to be around Rs 15 crore. However, it may exceed further.

The 53-year-old engineer Pratap Kumar Samal who passed out a Diploma in Civil Engineering at Barapada School of Engineering, Bhadrak in 1987 had joined government service in 1988. During the course of 33 years of service, the accumulation of enormous wealth by Samal leads everybody to believe that the civil construction divisions of the State government have turned into monuments of corruption with bribery becoming the order of the day.