The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Saturday carried out simultaneous raids at seven cities at locations of nine Chhattisgarh officers and uncovered cash running into millions, jewellery, land documents and other papers exposing huge wealth amassed by these Government officers disproportionate to their known source of income.
The assets exposed during raids confirm that officers were indulged in huge financial bungling for over the years, ACB officials claimed.
Those officers targeted by ACB teams were retired food officer Gulam Mohammed Khan, Bilaspur, Febian Khes, Executive Engineer (EE) Public Works Department (PWD), Ambikapur, Umashankar Ram EE Water Resource Department (WRD) Baikunthpur, NK Dwivedi District Education Officer, Raigarh, Anand Pandey Project Officer Zila Panchayat Bilaspur, Arjun lal Yadav Assistant Manager MARKFED Janjgir, Mithilesh Pandey Patwari Raipur, GR Dewangan Deputy Engineer WRD Rajnandgaon and Shanti lal Gupta SDO WRD Baikunthpur-Korea.
The ACB officials confirmed on the basis of initial investigations that the corrupt officers had pumped money in millions in real estate business, jewellery, petrol pumps and even in educational institutions. But a final figure of each of these officials’ assets would be known over the next 3-4 days once all papers recovered during the raid analysed.
Reports say during raids at the residence of Shanti lal Gupta SDO WRD, ACB officers found Rs 20 lakh cash amount in his bathroom while massive gold jewellery was also recovered from him.
The ACB team also found out that besides investment of crores in land and real estate, Mithilesh Pandey Patwari of Raipur, had got his son admitted at Datta Meghe Medical College Vidarbha after paying Rs 40 lakh.
Anand Pandey Project officer Zila Panchayat Bilaspur, had heavily invested in school, colleges, and coaching centre. Records indicating Pandey’s investment in a 100 room ‘Drona College’ sprawling over 2 acres was found. 10 min-buses, 2 big buses a wagon-R and 2 Tata Magic vehicles were at the college.
Initial investigation at the house of retired food officer Gulam Mohammad exposed that he had got two petrol pumps on the name of his wife and son apart from a sprawling house and several plots.