BENGALURU: The Special Court for People’s Representative extended the Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody of Chitradurga Congress MLA KC Veerendra by another six days. Veerendra was arrested in Gangtok, Sikkim, on Saturday in connection with alleged online and offline betting and money laundering activities. He was produced before a judge on Sunday and was remanded to ED custody for five days. As the MLA’s custody ended on Thursday, the ED officials produced him before the court.
Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) for ED requested the court to grant the MLA’s custody by another 15 days.
The senior advocate representing the MLA , who objected to this, said ED officials had harassed Veerendra without providing any facilities and requested that bail be granted.
The judge instructed the ED to give the accused enough time to sleep, provide him with clean drinking water and medicine. The judge also directed that the MLA be allowed to meet his lawyers for 30 minutes every day.
Veerendra was arrested in connection with alleged online and offline betting and money laundering activities. The ED had carried out searches at 31 locations linked to Veerendra, including six in Chitradurga district, 10 in Bengaluru, eight in Goa, three in Jodhpur, two in Mumbai and one each in Hubballi and Gangtok, for two days.
During the raids, officials seized about Rs 1 crore worth of foreign currency, gold ornaments valued at Rs 6 crore, 10 kg of silver articles, Rs 12 crore in cash, and four vehicles, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
The search revealed that the accused was running several online betting sites. In addition, 17 bank accounts and two bank lockers were frozen. Several property-related documents belonging to Veerendra’s brother, KC Nagaraj, and his son, Prithvi N Raj, were also seized.