The CBI has arrested seven persons, including two senior officers of the National Projects Co-nstruction Corporation Limited, for allegedly demanding a bribe of Rs 40 lakh for clearing bills pertaining to construction of BSF border out-posts. Arrested include NPCC Zonal Manager Rakesh Mohan Kotwal and Manager Latiful Pasha and 5 private persons — Anish Baid, owner of Shree Gautam Const-ruction Company, Binod Singhi, director in Baid’s company, Ramesh Kumar, an employee in company, Sunil Kumar, Kotwal’s relative and Dharmendra Kumar.
Sunil Kumar, who was allegedly receiving Rs 25 lakh, a part of the payment of the bribe on behalf of Kotwal from Ramesh Kumar in a hotel at the posh Safdarjung Enclave area, was caught red-handed when CBI officials conducted a raid on Sunday.
Others were nabbed later on the basis of questioning of the arrested accused. The searches came after the agency received a secret information about the bribery transaction in the offing between the accused persons.
Based on the statements of the arrested accused, the agency conducted searches at 18 locations in Delhi, Silchar, Jalpaiguri, Guwahati and Gwalior.
Kotwal and Pasha had allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 33 lakh from Baid for passing the bills for construction of Border Security Force (BSF) border outposts done by his firm, the officials said.
Baid assured Kotwal that the payment could be made once his bills are cleared. Kotwal suggested him to get the bills prepared and process them on a back date.
Kotwal also asked Baid to allegedly pay Rs three lakh as initial payment to his office personnel posted at the NPCC Zonal Office, Silchar in Assam, who were processing his pending bills. The bribe amount of Rs three lakh was allegedly paid by Baid’s employee Swapan Das.
On July 1, Kotwal further instructed Baid to transfer Rs 40 lakh as bribe to him in Delhi. Three days later, Baid allegedly arranged a transfer of Rs 25 lakh to Delhi through one Vinit Agarwal, a businessman based in Assam, through a ‘hawala’ channel, the FIR alleged.
Once money landed in Delhi, Baid allegedly informed Kotwal to make arrangements for its pickup, who in return asked his relative Sunil Kumar to visit Delhi between July 13 and 15 and collect the bribe money.
The payment of the bribe money was arranged at a hotel in the Safdarjung Enclave, where the CBI sleuths raided the location and arrested Sunil Kumar, who was receiving the bribe from Baid’s employee Ramesh Kumar.