BENGALURU: The CBI on Wednesday arrested Congress MLA Anil Lad in connection with illegal export of iron ore from Belekeri port in Uttara Kananda. Lad, representing Ballari City constituency, is the fifth sitting MLA to be arrested in this case.
Lad is accused of illegally exporting 15,000 tonnes of seized iron ore in 2010 from Belekeri port. MLAs Nagendra (Kudligi), T H Suresh Babu (Kampli), Anand Singh (Vijayanagar) and Satish Sail (Karwar) had been arrested earlier. Barring Sail, all are from Ballari district.
Another Ballari leader and former minister G Janardhana Reddy too was arrested in this connection when he was in jail facing other charges of illegal mining.
His older brother G Somashekhara Reddy too was arrested for allegedly bribing a judge to get bail for Janardhana Reddy.
The CBI has been investigating the case on a Supreme Court order, which had appointed the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) to look into the issue.
The illegal export of iron ore from Belekeri port was exposed by former Lokayukta N Santosh Hegde, who in his report had said 7.74 million tonnes of iron ore were illegally exported between 2006-2007 and 2010-11, causing huge loss to the exchequer.