Bank suspends Bitti Mohanty

The State Bank of Travancore has suspended Raghav Rajan, the probationary officer working with them and said to be Bitti Mohanty, convicted in the 2006 German woman rape case and now in police custody seven years after he jumped parole. Raghav Rajan has been suspended on the ground that he was under police custody for more than 48 hours, a bank spokesman said today, adding that, police have not yet informed the bank that Rajan was Bitti.

After an inquiry, the bank’s next course of action would be his dismissal without paying any benefits, the spokesman said.

Son of former Odisha DGP B.B. Mohanty, Bitti was traced and found working in a public sector bank at Kannur for the last three years impersonating as Raghav Raja from Andhra Pradesh.

Bitti had jumped parole in 2006 while he was serving a seven-year jail term in the rape case in Alwar in Rajasthan.

He landed in trouble after employees of the bank’s branch at Pazhayangadi in Kannur grew suspicious of the true identity of their colleague on seeing his photo among pictures of accused in various sex crimes shown by TV channels and floated on the internet in the wake of the Delhi gangrape incident.

Later, the bank authorities also received an anonymous letter stating that the man who was working there as Raghav Rajan was Bitti.

A police team from Rajasthan took Bitti to Jaipur by train on March 12 to confirm his identity.

Though the Rajasthan police team did not have any scientific evidence to prove Bitti’s identity, Hemender, a member of the team who arrested him seven years ago, had identified him.