Three persons, including two officials of Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC), were arrested for allegedly taking bribe by the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB), the first arrests related to any complaint made on the newly-launched anti-graft helpline in Delhi.
According to ACB, a complaint was lodged by a caller on Delhi Government’s 1031 helpline on Thursday, claiming that bribe was being taken at the entry gate of Azadpur Mandi for allowing trucks to enter despite having valid pass. “The caller was then asked to do a sting after which a team of 15-18 officials of ACB carried out a late night raid at 1.30 am when close to 20,000 trucks queue up to get entry,” an official said.
The accused identified as Umesh Kumar, Vijay Singh Joon and Prem Singh, all in their late 40s, were caught red-handed while taking bribe for allowing the trucks to enter into Azadpur Mandi in North Delhi. They were arrested around 2.30 am on Saturday from entry gate of the Mandi.
An ACB official said that Joon and Singh were employed with APMC while Kumar was an outsider. They were running the racket for several months and earning around Rs2,000 to Rs5,000 in a night.A case under the Section 7&8/13 POC Act and 120B of the Indian Penal Code has been registered against them. The officials said that they are getting many complaints through the Government’s 1031 helpline. Earlier this month, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had relaunched the anti-corruption helpline.