BENGALURU: Sleuths of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Wednesday launched simultaneous raids across Karnataka against 15 officials of various government departments.
As many as 408 ACB sleuths are conducting search operations in the residences and offices of the targeted officials and houses of their relatives.
According to a press release, an intensive search operation was carried out at the officer's house and documents were being examined for three consecutive hours. It is interesting to note that a large number of illegal assets belonging to Government C and D Group employees were searched during the attack.
The raid began in the morning at the residence of TS Rudreshappa, joint director of the Agriculture Department in Gadag district. from where the ACB officials seized 7 kg of gold and Rs 15 lakh in cash.
More than Rs 40 lakh in cash and gold ornaments were seized from the house of Shanthagouda, an engineer working at the Public Works Department (PWD) in the Kalburgi district. During the raid, the ACB sleuths found currency notes hidden in water pipes and ceilings at the engineer’s residence.
The officials had to hire a plumber to recover the notes hidden in the ceiling and pipes in the house. Visual from the raid shows officials taking out Rs 500 notes from the water pipes of the house. According to officials, Rs 10 lakh were hidden in pipes while Rs 6 lakhs were hidden in the ceiling.
The raid comes in the wake of a complaint by the Karnataka Contractors Association that contractors taking up civil works have to cough up commissions.
The raids were conducted on executive engineers, RTO officers, revenue inspectors, project managers, joint director, First Division Clerk (FDC) and a ‘D’ Group employee. These officers worked for Revenue department, BBMP, agricultural department and PWD as well. The raids are also being conducted on a physiotherapist of a government hospital.
According to the Bureau, raids were conducted at locations belonging to Mangalore Smart City Executive Engineer KS Lingegowda, Mandya Executive Engineer Srinivas K, Doddaballapura Revenue Inspector Lakshminarashimaiah, Former Project Manager of Bengaluru Nirmiti Kendra Vasudev, Bengaluru Nandini Dairy general manager B Krishna Reddy, Gadag Agriculture Department, Joint Director T S Rudreshappa and Bailahongala cooperative development officer A K Masti among others. ACB sources said they seized property-related documents, huge quantities of gold and silver ornaments, cash and investment documents from them.
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