Jamshedpur, Nov. 7: Police have released Sajjan Kumar Paswan, lecturer of National Institute of Technology, and two of his associates, who were arrested yesterday for alluring 33 poor tribal children from Rajnagar and huddling them inside a house at Adityapur.

Paswan, interestingly, has been in controversy for the second time now, after early 2001, when he had made news by managing to get allotment of a petrol pump of Indian Oil Corporation at Saharsa district in Bihar.

Despite being a faculty member of the then Regional Institute of Technology, Paswan had projected himself as an unemployed educated youth. He, however, had to give up the petrol pump after one of his relatives blew the whistle over his fraud to the IOC management.

Officer-in-charge of Rajnagar police station R.S. Patel said Paswan and his associates were set free last night because there was no relevant ground to book them, but they have been asked to appear before the police whenever required.

“The children were taken with their parents’ consent. I do not think there is any crime. The NGO could not give them a better place to stay,” said the officer-in-charge.

Seraikela-Kharsawan district deputy commissioner Nagendra Prasad Singh has ordered a probe against the NGO, Chauharmal Yuva Sevasansthan, after a group of children exposed the loopholes by fleeing the boarding school at Adityapur.

The subdivisional magistrate, Seraikela, Meghu Badhaik, has been asked to submit a report within a fortnight. The deputy commissioner said: “I will set up a committee to probe into the matter.”

The Gamharia police forwarded the accused, including an NIT lecturer, to Rajnagar police station in the evening.

Meanwhile, Sajjan Kumar Paswan said he was not directly involved with the NGO, but was helping them out as it was headed by his wife.

“The government has not issued any funds for the past two years and we were trying to arrange money for running the organisation,” he added.