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Guwahati, Oct 17 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has unearthed in a big way the unaccounted assets of the arrested executive director and regional officer of National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL), Guwahati, after a series of raids in several cities. Officials gave this information on Friday.
The officer, who was caught red-handed by the CBI on October 14 while allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 10 lakh from a private contractor, is now at the center of a massive corruption probe that has revealed staggering wealth in his and his family’s name.
During searches conducted at his office and residences in Guwahati, Ghaziabad and Imphal, CBI sleuths recovered Rs 2.62 crore in cash and a large number of real estate and investment related documents.
The seized materials include ownership documents of nine premium apartment units, one office space and three residential plots in Delhi-NCR; A luxury apartment and a residential plot in Bengaluru; Four high-end apartments and two plots in Guwahati; and two household plots with agricultural land in Imphal West.
The investigators also found six luxury vehicles, two expensive watches worth several lakhs and documents showing 100 grams of silver bars. The agency suspects that many of these properties were purchased at low prices and are now under verification.
According to officials, the bribery case was registered after source-based intelligence indicated that a senior NHIDCL official was demanding illegal gratification from contractors in return for favorable treatment in project clearances.
The CBI then laid a trap and caught him red-handed while taking bribe for granting time extension and completion certificate related to a four-lane project on National Highway 37 between the end of Demo and Moran bypass in Assam.
The accused officer and a representative of a private company, who were arrested during the operation, were produced before the special CBI court in Assam and have been sent to three-day police custody.
The CBI has said that investigation into disproportionate assets and related transactions is ongoing.
–IANS
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