HYDERABAD: Food inspector Edem Bapuji, who was arrested by the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials, allegedly indulged in collecting monthly mamools from the managements of hotels, business establishments and other eatery shops. “As many victims refused to pay mamools, the accused officer threatened the owners to raid their establishments and register cases against them. Based on the specific information, we have kept a close vigil on the regular activity of the accused officer and found him possessing illegal assets,’’ an investigating officer said.
A number of hotel owners brought the issue to the notice of the ACB officials about the illegal activities of Bapuji. A senior official of ACB said that the accused officer misused his powers by letting off persons involved in serving adulterated food to customers. In the complaints, the victims alleged that Bapuji directed small hotels, street food court owners to pay mamools monthly and weekly.
A day after the ACB officials arrested Bapuji for amassing illegal assets and seized properties worth of `5 crore, the officials are likely to file a petition before the court seeking police custody of the accused officer for questioning.“We have to verify the lockers of banks belonging to the accused officer. To get more details, we will go further in seeking police custody,’’ an ACB official said. During investigation it was also found that the food inspector had collected samples of adulterated food from various hotels and failed to send the same to testing lab for verification.
“The accused officer did not send the collected food samples to lab and did not register cases against some of hotel owners who served adulterated food,’’ officials said. Meanwhile, the government directed the law enforcement agencies to take stern action against the managements for involving in the supply of adulterated food.