Bhubaneswar, April 30: Three employees of the state government-owned Orissa Co-operative Housing Corporation Limited (OCHCL) were arrested for allegedly forging the signature of the corporation’s chairman and confining him to his office room on April 26.

Soon after their arrest yesterday, members of the OCHCL Employees’ Union gathered at the police station demanding release of their colleagues and action against the chairman.

According to the city police, OCHCL chairman Om Prakash Ray had lodged a complaint with the Kharavela Nagar police against seven employees of the corporation for harassing him and forging his signature. Ray said that the union had been de-recognised.

The accused were identified as Prasanna Kumar Mahali, Shashank Shekhar Mohanty and Manoranjan Das. While Prasanna was the working president of the employees’ union, Shashank was its general secretary.

The police registered a case against them under sections 341 (wrongful restraint), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 465 (forgery), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 294 (obscene acts and songs), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.

Later in the evening, the police forwarded them to the court where their bail plea was rejected. The court sent them to jail. Om Prakash in his complaint accused the employees of forging his signature to reinstate five of their colleagues, who had been suspended by the management around 10 days ago. They had also suspended two other employees by forging the chairman’s signature.

“They had been trying to harass me in every possible way. As they created problems for me, I had stopped going to the office for the past few days. When I heard that they had forged my signature, I came to the office on April 26. But they locked me in my room and threatened to kill me,” Om Prakash said. He alleged that some of the employees had been recruited in the past without producing proper documents and they had been trying to create problems in the smooth functioning of the corporation. He also said that house of one of the arrested employees had been raided by the vigilance last year in connection with a disproportionate assets case.

The chairman also alleged that some of the employees, who had been posted elsewhere in the state, hardly attended their offices. “These people are busy making money by engaging in side business,” he alleged.

The chairman also said that because of non-cooperation by the employees, they had not received their salary for the last three months. “After the previous manager was suspended from his duty and a new one was appointed, these people did not cooperate with him. They wanted to reinstate the earlier manager,” said Om Prakash.

On the other hand, the employees alleged that their colleagues, who were sent to jail, had been falsely implicated. “ We will decide our next course of action after their release,” said one of them.