India News | Kota: Junior Engineer, Tout Nabbed for Taking Bribe to Release PMAY Fund to Man

Kota, Jun 11 (PTI) The Anti-Corruption Bureau Thursday arrested a contractual junior engineer and a tout for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 40,000 for releasing Rs 1.5 lakh to a man under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), police said.

Satyanarayan Meena (43), a junior engineer in the Urban Improvement Trust (UIT) here, and alleged tout Shivraj Goswami (42), who is a home guard jawan posted at the Kota Municipal Corporation, were arrested based on a complaint by Vimal Kumar Kevat, the supposed PMAY beneficiary, they said.

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Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP), ACB, Kota, Chandrasheel Thakur said Kevat, a resident of Babu Colony slum area on Balita Road, had applied for the PMAY fund and was supposed to receive an installment of Rs. 1,50,000 for building a house.

But the JE demanded a bribe of Rs 40,000 for releasing the money, the ASP said.

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The complainant then approached the ACB, Kota, on Monday and lodged a report against Meena, following which an ACB team carried out a verification of the allegations the same day, he added.

The JE asked the complainant to hand over Rs 40,000 to Goswami at the latter's residence on Balita Road in Kunhari where some ACB personnel were already present.

They arrested him after he accepted the money, the ASP said.

Sensing a trap, the JE fled from the UIT premises, but another ACB team chased and arrested him from a house in Keshavpura where he hid himself under a bed, he further said.

During a search at the JE's house, an unaccounted sum of Rs 7,06,400 was also recovered, and search is still underway, ASP Thakur added.

The two would be produced before the ACB court in the city on Friday, he said.

Meanwhile, an ACB court Thursday sent a medical officer to judicial custody until June 25, a day after he was arrested by the agency from Jhalawar for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 12,000 from a nursing staff, Jhalawar ACB's Additional Superintendent of Police Bhawanishankar Meena said.

The ASP said the accused, Dr. Pradeep Sharma, undertook COVID-19 test after his arrest on Wednesday and it came negative on Thursday.

"No significant recovery was made during a search at Dr. Pradeep Sharma's government residence at Harigarh or at his permanent residence at Kota," the ASP said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)