Bhubaneswar, Feb. 25: Vigilance sleuths today arrested Odisha Forest Service officer Sudhansu Sekhar Mishra, 50, for possessing disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 5.5 crore.

Mishra is at present serving as the divisional forest officer, Athgarh, in Cuttack district.

Yesterday, the sleuths conducted raids at 10 locations, including Mishra's office chamber, following allegations of possession of disproportionate assets and recovered movable and immovable assets worth Rs 6 crore, including Rs 93 lakh in cash.

"The worth of his assets is 700 times his genuine source of income. This is one among the biggest detection of disproportionate assets. He was remanded to judicial custody for 15 days," said a vigilance official.

Vigilance director R.P. Sharma said the accused would be brought on remand for further investigation.

"We will interrogate him to ascertain how he managed to amass such a huge amount. Besides, we will also try to find out the reason behind keeping such a huge amount of cash," said Sharma.

The sleuths have found Rs 93 lakh cash in a briefcase during the search at Mishra's rented house at Madhupatna in Cuttack.

The officials have also found gold ornaments and gold coins weighing 551 grams during the search operation besides detecting cash deposit worth Rs 93 lakh in various banks and post offices.

Similarly, the investigating agency found Mishra's fixed deposits worth Rs 2.61 crore. Immovable properties worth Rs 1.12 crore, which included six plots and four houses, were also traced.

Mishra, a 1987-batch Odisha Forest Service officer, started his career as an assistant conservator of forest and was promoted to divisional forest officer in 2007.

He served as the divisional forest officer, Angul, for almost five years and then posted as the divisional forest officer, Berhampur, for three years. He got transferred to Athgarh in November last.

In another incident, the vigilance sleuths today trapped an amin of Nari tehsil in Jajpur district while he was accepting a bribe of Rs 1,500 for demarcation of a land. The accused, Jugal Charan Nayak, was arrested after the bribe money of Rs 1,500 was recovered from him.