From fugitive to lawyer: Tale of Bitti Mohanty who fooled Kerala police for years

Kannur: The dramatic story of Bitti Mohanty (41), the young man who had flummoxed Kerala police through impersonation skills, ended as he was reported dead at Bhuvaneshwar, according to police sources. He was under treatment for serious health ailments in Bhuvaneshwar, his native place.

It was in 2013 at Pazhayangadi in Kannur that Bitti Mohanty was arrested by the police when he was leading a secret life impersonating a bank officer. Police had been searching for Bitti for around 7 years as he had absconded from Rajasthan after being sentenced by the court for sexually abusing a German student on March 6, 2006. He was in jail for around seven months in connection with this case. But, when he was granted parole, he had sneaked out of Rajasthan and disappeared, only to reappear in Kannur under a different identity.

A handsome, suave guy, Bitti could easily hide his real identity and was enjoying another life under the name Raghav Rajan, till an anonymous letter sent to the bank officials led to his real identity. Son of BB Mohanty, a former DGP of Odisha, the story of Bitti Mohanty had all the dramatic elements befitting a crime thriller. According to police sources, his story had not many parallels in the history of crime in the country.

Bitti, who had absconded from Rajasthan, had reappeared in Kerala and had fabricated documents and certificates to change his identity. With his changed identity as Raghav Rajan, a Telugu Brahmin, Bitti joined a college and passed MBA with high marks. Following this, he wrote the SBI probationary bank officers’ examination and got selected in the first attempt itself. His first posting was at the Madayi branch of SBI. It was during his stint at the bank that an anonymous letter was sent to the bank officials regarding the real identity.

Though the police could arrest Bitti in the fake certificates case, they could not prove that he is son of Bidya Bhushan Mohanty, as the former DGP was not ready for a DNA test, denying that Bitti is not his son. Bitti got bail in the fake certificates case and the Kerala police had handed him over to Rajasthan police. After completing his term in jail, Bitti took a degree in law and had been practising as an advocate. He was undergoing chemotherapy for cancer for some time now.