Baripada: Police in Mayurbhanj arrested a 40-year-old man for allegedly duping people as an officer of the Indian Administrative Service.

Police nabbed Rajat Panda from Damodarpur village where he was staying with his in-laws on Monday night.

The police said he had introduced himself as Lingaraj Panda, sub-collector of Malkangiri, and duped several into giving him money on the pretext of giving them jobs.

Khunta police station inspector-in-charge Reena Behera said: "Following a tip-off that he was camping at Damadarpur, we conducted a raid and nabbed him. He has deceived several people by posing as the sub-collector of Malkangiri. He also operating a fake Facebook account in the name of Panda Lingaraj, IAS."

"During interrogations, he revealed his real name and said that he hailed from Tihidi police limits in Bhadrak district. We have intimated our counterparts in Malkanagiri about him. He committed several offences in that area. We will hand over him to Malkangiri police," she said

Panda had married a woman, who was working as an Accredited Social Health Activist, about two weeks ago at Damodarpur.

The cops learnt that he had been in Jharpada jail after being arrested on charges of duping people as an agent of deposit collection companies.

Udala sub-divisional police officer Swapna Ranjan Mahapatra said: "We had information from Malkangiri police that the accused was operating a fake account in the name of the sub-collector. A case has been registered in Malkangiri in this connection. We traced his location to Khunta by tracking his phone."

"Local residents had grown suspicious of him and informed us. We detected that he was impersonating the sub-collector to dupe people."