A person begging on the streets of Puri has turned out to be a diploma-holder in plastic engineering — thanks to a brawl.

Girija Shankar Mishra, 51, who was found begging near the Shree Jagannath Temple, had got into a fight with a rickshaw-puller that left both with bruises.

Police intervened, brought them to a police station and asked both to lodge a complaint. While the rickshaw-puller was unable to write his application, the beggar, to everyone’s surprise, lodged his complaint in English and narrated how the fight had broken out.

The six-line application was free of errors.

Seeing his handwriting and the application, the police became curious. “During the investigation, we came to know that the beggar, Girija Shankar Mishra, is an engineer. His father was a retired police officer,” a police officer said.

Sources said Mishra’s parents were both dead.

Mishra, who is from Bhubaneswar, did his BSc and then completed his diploma from an engineering college before joining a company in Mumbai. He had later moved to Hyderabad. “We don’t know what happened to make him quit the job in Hyderabad, come to Puri and start begging,” the officer said.

Asked why he had turned to begging, Mishra said: “It’s a personal matter. After completing my BSc, I did a diploma in plastic engineering from the Central Institute of Plastic Engineering and Technology (CIPET) and worked with Milton. I quit the job following a dispute with seniors. There are certain things that happened that cannot be disclosed. The scars remain forever.” On Mishra’s request, the police did not pursue the case.

Sources said Mishra spent the night under the open sky and had many times been seen reading newspapers.

He hardly speaks. The police suspect him to be mentally unstable.

Earlier, in 2019, Odisha had witnessed instances when qualified engineers joined clerical jobs in the state.