SPO, engineer arrested in Kashmir for accepting bribe

Srinagar, Mar 26 (UNI) Jammu and Kashmir Vigilance Organisation (VO) arrested a Special Police Officer (SPO) and one engineer for accepting bribe, a VO spokesman said.

With this, about a dozen officials of different government departments were caught red-handed by the VO in the Kashmir valley during this month, the last month of the financial year.

One Zahoor Ahmad Shah, a resident of Kokernag in south Kashmir, was arrested by police at Kishtwar when he was selling apple saplings to a farmer, the spokesman said.

However, he was released after Kokernag police informed that he was not involved in any militancy related incident.

To his shock, on reaching back home, a SPO Mohammad Ramzan asked him to pay Rs 40,000 for helping his ( Zahoor) release from the Kishtwar police.

Later Zahoor approached the VO and a trap was laid to arrest the SPO red-handed.

When the SPO received money from Zahoor, a team of VO arrested him and recovered the money from his possession.

The SPO has told him that the money would be distributed among the concerned police officials of Kishtwar police station.

On search, the ''tainted money'' was recovered from the possession of accused SPO and he was booked under FIR No 12/2006.

The VO also caught red handed a Junior Engineer of Public Health Engineering Department Sopore while demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 10,000 from a contractor.

The contractor had completed the work of laying pipes at Sopore.

However, he was not being paid the bills and was directed to pay commission first.

UNI BAS SY KP1257