Duped investors demostrate in Puri. Picture by Sarat Patra

Bhubaneswar, April 30: The whereabouts of regional manager of the Saradha Group Ranjan Kumar Das, posted in Puri, are yet to be traced.

Das, 50, allegedly fled from Puri, 36 hours before his chief Sudipta Sen, along with his key aide Debjani Mukherjee and the company’s Jharkhand chief Arvind Singh Chauhan, were arrested from Jammu and Kashmir on April 23.

In a related development, a crime branch team today reached Balsore to start probe into the fraud deposit-collection firm case.

One of the employees and agents of the company Swadhin Panda said: “They befooled us and fled from Puri with nearly Rs 20 lakh in cash. Tomorrow, we will file a case against Das and submit a memorandum to chief minister Naveen Patnaik through the Puri collector.”

Panda said they had no hint about the collapse of the company till April 21 and continued to collect money from the people.

He said around 2,000 agents, working in the Puri division, used to collect around Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh everyday. However, for the past 15 days, no money had been deposited in the bank.

On April 21 midnight, Das called peon Kabi Barik, 30, to his chamber and told him that an urgent call had come from the Calcutta office and he had to leave the place immediately.

According to the plan, he left Puri in an Indica car and asked the peon to take care of his Hero Honda motorcycle. Since that day he has been traceless.

The company opened its office in Puri on January 2011, and within a span of two years, it managed to collect nearly Rs 50 crore from the market.

“The company had floated an attractive scheme for the agents. If an agent collected Rs 1 lakh, he was to get Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000 as incentive. If a team working under him collected Rs 1 lakh, as a leader the agent used to get a share amounting to Rs 8,000,” he said.

Sakhigopal, Nimapara, Brahamagiri and Sambalpur were functioning under the Puri division while Berhampur, Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Badamba were working under the Balasore division.

In another development, angry depositors yesterday beat up one agent Dibakar Biswal as he had collected nearly Rs 25 lakh from them.

Crime branch ADG B.K. Sharma said: “The awareness campaign will start shortly. The state government approved a plan yesterday.”