Bangalore: Lokayukta raids Govt official residences

Bengaluru, Oct 23: The Lokayukta police on Wednesday, Oct 22 raided the residences of nine State government officials and four police officers and found assets disproportionate to their known sources of income. The total value of the assets was put at Rs. 14.89 crore.

The raids were conducted simultaneously in Bangalore, Chickballapur, Belgaum, Bagalkot, Kolar and Mysore.

"These are officers from the cutting edge level. Some are involved in issuing licences for ration shops and petrol stations, while others are involved in development works of panchayat and in investigation," said Additional Director General of Police (Lokayukta) Rupak Kumar Dutta, who supervised the operation.

Two of the accused officials R. Nagaraj and Rangaswamiah, have been charged earlier with accepting bribes and with amassing assets disproportionate to their known sources of income.

Mahadevappa Hanumantha Bheemakkanavar, Executive Engineer of Gulbarga Zilla Panchayat, who joined service in 1994, was found possessing assets worth Rs. 2.79 crore. Among the assets he had were a luxury hotel in Bagalkot in the name of his wife Madhumati, a house in Bagalkot built on two 66 X 33 sq ft sites, a house in Yeshwantapur in Bangalore and seven acres of land at Mudhol in Bijapur district.

The other accused officials are Manager, Food and Civil Supplies Department, Bangalore, Venkataramana Swamy; Saudatti police inspector Narayana V. Bharamani; Assistant Engineer, Bagalkot Zilla Panchayat (Engineering division) Mahesh Krishnappa Kakareddy; secretary of Thanisandra Panchayat Nagaraja; Deputy Superintendent of Police (Crime) Surendra Rao K.R.; Deputy Registrar, Bangalore North, Krishna Naik; Work Inspector, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, Kamalanagar, Rangaswamaiah; village accountant, Devanahalli taluk, Vallijan; Yelahanka police inspector Obalesh; sub-registrar, Malur, Kolar district, Laxman Prasad; Inspector of Motor Vehicles, Bijapur, M. Shivaprasad; and Kanakapura police inspector Konappa Reddy.

Among the assets in the possession of Venkataramana Swamy were a three-storeyed building and a house in Bangalore; a rice mill, a house and four acres of land in Kanakapura; and a site in Vishveshwara Extension in Bangalore.

The Lokayukta police found cash in the possession of several officials. This includes Rs. 4.68 lakh recovered from Kakareddy. The police also discovered Rs. 5.6 lakh allegedly belonging to Vallijan and kept in the house of Narayanaswamy, who works as a gram sevak in his (Vallijan"s) office. The police recovered Rs. 3.12 lakh from Nagaraja, whose house was raided in 1999.

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