Massive fraud in the name of midday meal supply order, Tripura businessman defrauded of Rs 2.43 crore by jailed Calcutta conman

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, September 1, 2025

In an unprecedented case of well-planned cheating a businessman from AD Nagar area Biswajit Saha was defrauded of a whopping Rs 2.43 crore by a conman from Calcutta’s Hawarah area Utpal Kumar Chowdhury who is now in jail in his home city in another case. The entire fraud was perpetrated on Biswajit Saha in the name of midday meal supply for the department of school education in suspected collaboration with two other local businessmen and a section of officers and employees of the education department. Significantly, the AD Nagar police station had dither over registration of FIR in the case sought to be filed by defrauded Biswajit Saha and it was only after a CJM court order had been passed that the police station registered the FIR but there is no initiative to bring the culprit to the book.

According to details of the case, Biswajit Saha who runs a business establishment under the banner of ‘Purna Enterprise’ in Kemper Bazar area had familiarity with two other collaborators in the cheating case known as Swaprup Banik of SD Mission area and Niti Sharma of Kemper Bazar area. The duo had introduced Biswajit Saha to Utpal Chowdhury as an IAS officer posted in the department of school education after the latter had opened an office in Kemper Bazar area.

There was an advertisement published in local newspapers on October 30 2023 issued by the school education department to the effect that the department would centrally sign an agreement for supply of materials for midday meal all over the state. The agreement was purportedly to be signed within a week and showing this Utpal’s accomplices Swarup Banik and Niti Sharma persuaded Biswajit Saha to sign the agreement and to deposit Rs 2.43 crores in five installments in Indian Bank , Agartala branch as security for the department. After the deposit by demand draft Biswajit was given a fake receipt and a fake supply order. The woman Niti Sharma who had introduced herself as Utapal’s wife had also exacted money from Biswajit by demand draft.

But after all this Biswajit was not being asked to begin supply and the place for it and he contacted Swarup Banik but came to know that Utpal had been admitted to an ICU in a Delhi hospital with serious illness . But within a short while cheated Biswajit learned that Utpal had been arrested by police in Calcutta and was rotting in jail. He realized that he had been defrauded in cold blood and Swarup and Niti were collaborators of Utpal in the crime. Biswajit tried to register a FIR with AD Nagar police station against the conmen and woman and also against unnamed officials and employees of the school education department on April 11 but the police did not register the FIR. He then moved the CJM court with his complaint and an order upon the AD Nagar police station to file the register and begin the investigation was by the CJM in the month of June. But till now the police have not been able to bring fraud Utpal Chowdhury to Agartala or to arrest the two other culprits, Swarup Banik and Niti Sharma.

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