KALABURAGI: At a time when the Congress has intensified its protest against the BJP State Government over various issues, a gunman of a sitting Congress MLA has been arrested in connection with the PSI recruitment scam in Kalaburagi district. Ayyanna Desai, the gunman of Afzalpur Congress MLA MY Patil and another constable, Rudragowda, attached to City Armed Reserve Police, were arrested by the CID on Thursday.
Speaking to the media here, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, who confirmed the arrest of the two policemen, said, “We are taking action without any bias... without sparing anybody”. CID sources said Desai, who appeared in the CET at Jnana Ganga English Medium School centre on October 3 in Kalaburagi, was helped by Rudragowda. Rudragowda was helping Ayyanna Desai by dictating answers on a mobile phone from outside and the latter was copying the same with the help of a Bluetooth device.With this, the total number of those arrested by the CID in the scam so far stands at 10.
Meanwhile, BJP leader and secretary of Jnana Ganga English Medium School, Divya Hagaragi, one of the prime suspects in the case, applied for anticipatory bail at the Third JMFC Court in Kalaburagi on Wednesday. The co-accused, head master Kashinath, and employee Archana, have also applied for anticipatory bail even as they have been evading the police for over 10 days.
On the other hand, acting on the confession statement of first accused in the case, Veeresh, of paying Rs 39 lakh to Assistant Engineer of Irrigation Department of Kalaburagi, Manjunath Melakundi, regarding the test, the CID has served a notice to the latter. Manjunath had been asked to appear before the investigators to clarify on the confession of Veeresh. But Manjunath skipped and went absconding.
Following this, CID sleuths raided Manjunath’s house at NGO Colony on Wednesday evening. They found hall tickets of many candidates who had appeared for the test. It is alleged that Manjunath used to deal with the heads of the institutions conducting PSI CET for helping the candidates after the aspirants greased his palm.