CBI nabs 2 more railway engineers in bribery case, total 5 arrested

New Delhi/Guwahati, Jan. 18 (IANS): 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 INR 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 INR 2.39 crore, officials said.

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 Inra Singh, a private person and Bhupendra Rawat, 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, Hem Chand Borah, Deputy Chief Engineer, Laxmi Kant Verma, Assistant Executive Engineer (AEN) and Pawan Baid, Director, ABCI Infrastructures Pvt Ltd, Rawat, Singh and other unknown persons under 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 Assam’s Guwahati.

The arrest were made after the CBI busted a racket on the allegations that some senior public functionaries of North Eastern Frontier Railways were involved in corrupt practices with private contractors for ongoing projects in the North Eastern Frontier Railways. They all are being brought to Delhi on transit remand, the official said.

The official said that during searches, sums of INR 18.5 lakh and INR 6.5 lakh have been recovered from the premises of Borah and Verma, respectively.

He said that a total amount of INR 2.39 crore has been recovered during the searches in the last two days, which includes the alleged bribe amount of INR 1 crore. The CBI had on Sunday also recovered INR 60 lakh from Dehradun and INR 54 lakh from 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 said agency sleuths carried out searches at over 26 locations in Delhi, Uttrakhand, Assam, Tripura and West Bengal since Sunday which are still going on.

The official said 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 NFR region.

It stated that that on Chauhan’s demand, Baid through his employee got bribe of INR 1 crore delivered to Singh, who is Chauhan’s relative at Dehradun through Rawat.