BENGALURU: The Hennur police team which raided the house of former corporator V Nagaraj on Thursday were perhaps hoping to wrap up the operation in a few hours.
But the huge stacks of demonetised currency they found at his premises came as a shocker and they ended up spending more than 12 hours scouring through every nook and cranny and counting the wads of old currency notes.
Police officials said, “We were just trying to find where the Rs 50 lakh he had taken as ransom from the complainant Umesh was kept. On suspicion, we checked a speaker box and were surprised to see demonetised currency notes.”
The police team which entered the air-conditioned room which housed the home theatre were surprised to see that it had plush interiors, reclining chairs and extravagant ambience.
Sources said, “Counting machines had to be brought in and documents related to land assets were found in every part of the house. Immediately, senior officials were alerted. We suspect that Nagaraj may have lent loans at high interest rates to people who had pledged their land documents.”
Additional Commissioner of Police (East) Hemant Nimbalkar and Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Ajay Hillori who arrived at the scene, were also surprised to know that Nagaraj possessed such huge amounts of demonetised notes. Hillori stayed back till the police team wrapped up the search for the day.
Investing officials said, “We suspect that both the accused Nagaraj and the victim Umesh were involved in money conversion business after demonetisation. Something may not have worked out between them and this resulted in Umesh registering a complaint against Nagaraj.”
Sources also said, “We have been tracking Nagaraj since many days and he is suspected to be involved in money conversion with a Chennai-based businessman.”
Police say the money that was in Nagaraj’s possession was not his but which he had robbed from many people in the name of converting it.
They said, “Nagaraj was luring people to get demonetised notes converted to new notes at 30 per cent commission. Many charged 58 per cent commission, so people may have approached Nagaraj.
“Once they came to meet Nagaraj at his place with the demonetised currency, he would rob them of money and valuables and threaten them of dire consequences if they complained to the police. None of them also approached us as it would invite trouble for them and many agencies would question them.”