CBI Arrested Two More Railway Engineers

NEW DELHI/GUWAHATI, Jan 18: A day after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested an Indian Railways Engineering Service officer and two others in an alleged graft case of Rs 1 crore, the agency on Monday continued its action as it arrested two more railway engineers, taking the total number arrests in the case to five and also recovered a total amount of Rs 2.39 crore, said officials. The CBI arrested 1985-batch officer Mahendra Singh Chauhan, who was posted as Chief Administrative Officer (CAO)/ Construction in North East Frontier Railways in Assam's Maligaon, in one of the biggest traps in the history of the agency on Sunday from Guwahati. The agency sleuths also arrested a person identified as Inra Singh and BhupendraRawat — an employee of the private company 'ABCI Infrastructures' on Sunday from Dehradun, while exchanging the alleged bribe amount.

The fresh arrests came after the CBI registered a case against Chauhan, Deputy Chief Engineer Hem Chand Borah, Assistant Executive Engineer (AEN) Laxmi Kant Verma and director of 'ABCI Infrastructures Pvt Ltd' PawanBaid, Rawat, Singh and some other unknown persons under the relevant sections of IPC and PC Act.

A CBI official in Delhi said that the agency on Monday arrested two more persons in connection with the case. The arrested people have been identified as Borah and Verma, from Guwahati.

The arrest were made after the CBI busted a racket on the allegations that some senior public functionaries of Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) were involved in corrupt practices with private contractors for ongoing projects in the NFR. All are being brought to Delhi on transit remand.

The official added that during searches, sums of Rs 18.5 lakh and Rs 6.5 lakh were recovered from the premises of Borah and Verma respectively.

He also said that a total amount of Rs 2.39 crore has been recovered during the searches in the last two days, which includes the alleged bribe amount of Rs one crore. The CBI had on Sunday also recovered Rs 60 lakh from Dehradun and Rs 54 lakh from the Guwahati premises of CAO.

The official said that besides cash, there has been recovery of jewellery and documents related to property from these locations.

He also said that agency sleuths carried out searches at over 26 locations in Delhi, Uttrakhand, Assam, Tripura and West Bengal since Sunday. The searches were on at the time of filing this report. The official also said that the accused were abusing their official positions for obtaining illegal gratification.

The FIR stated that that Baid was in contact with Chauhan over various ongoing projects in the NFR region.

It stated that that on Chauhan's demand, Baid through his employee got the bribe of Rs one crore delivered to Singh, who is Chauhan's relative at Dehradun through Rawat.

"Singh and Rawat were allegedly caught while exchanging the bribe money; and the bribe of Rs one crore was recovered," said the official. (IANS)

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