Police arrested a suspended government officer, accused of sexually exploiting a woman of Lohardaga, from Hotwar in Ranchi early on Friday after barricades set up near the Jaipal Singh Munda Mega Sports Complex prevented him from speeding away.
Vijay Kerketta (35), a Jharkhand Administrative Services officer, was absconding since August 7 when he was suspended after the 22-year-old woman approached chief minister Raghubar Das for help since the Lohardaga district police were not acting on her complaint lodged at the Mahila Thana there in June last year.
The woman, who told police she came into contact with Kerketta when he was posted as Kairo BDO in Lohardaga, is four months' pregnant. She also claimed that Kerketta had promised to marry her soon.
Kerketta, who was subsequently transferred to Nagri in Ranchi as BDO, has, however, denied the charges. Police have now come to know, he was staying at Nagri with his wife, a JAP constable.
"Kerketta was suspended on August 7 and had been absconding since then. Meanwhile, we learnt that he married a JAP constable and was staying in Ranchi. Accordingly, we laid a trap to catch him," said Mahila Thana OC Khantar Harijan.
The police nabbed Kerketta on Friday morning at 5.30am while he was driving his wife to work. He tried to speed away the moment the police asked him to stop. But he was apprehended at Khelgaon crossing near gate 2 of mega sports complex where a maze of barricades are always in place to regulate traffic.
According to the Mahila Thana OC, Kerketta has been produced before a Lohardaga court and forwarded to Lohardaga divisional jail under judicial custody.
"The woman had become friendly with the BDO when she approached him for seeking a caste certificate and other such essential documents. In due course, she also started seeing him at his house... After the woman became pregnant, she said, that Kerketta promised to marry her," the OC said.
The officer added that he was now awaiting instructions from seniors as Kerketta was claiming that he was married earlier and that his constable wife used to stay with him at Kairo where he was BDO.
