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Bihar: RCD engineer held for accepting Rs 16 lakh as bribe

PATNA: An executive engineer of road construction department, Arvind Kumar , was arrested from his flat here on Monday by the Vigilance Investigation Bureau for allegedly accepting Rs 16 lakh as bribe from a contractor of the department.

Though Kumar was posted at Katihar under Purnia division of the department, he preferred to take the bribe from the contractor, Nikhil Kumar, at his residence in the state capital.

He is the second senior official of the road construction department arrested on bribery charges since January this year.

Acting on a complaint lodged by Nikhil, a resident of Binji village under Kodha police station in Katihar district, a vigilance team led by additional SP Manoj Kumar raided his flat (no. 401) at Haricharan Residence on Ambedkar Path in Patna and nabbed the executive engineer with Rs 16 lakh in cash.

The trap team swung into action as soon as Kumar accepted the cash from the complainant as first instalment of Rs 84 lakh which he had demanded as his cut money from the contractor in lieu of clearing the bill of road maintenance under the Purnia division. However, the deal between the executive engineer and the contractor was struck at Rs 80 lakh.

A senior police officer of the anti-corruption wing of the state government said Kumar had demanded additional cut money for clearing some other payments of the contractor pending with him for long. “We have the audio of the conversation of the deal between the executive engineer and the contractor,” the officer said.

During investigation, it came to light that Kumar also owned another flat in the same apartment where his family resided. A member of the trap team said the family members started destroying the currency notes and other documents by burning them in the toilet soon after they came to know about the officer’s arrest.

“It took more than an hour to break open the main gate of flat number 308, which was locked from inside. Evidences of currency notes in the denomination of Rs 500 burned and destroyed in the washroom have been collected by the FSL team,” the vigilance officer told this newspaper.

During the search of the flat, the members of the trap team recovered gold jewellery worth over Rs 14 lakh, a few passbooks and documents of investments in insurance companies. The team also collected documents pertaining to bank lockers.

Kumar, a resident of Neura near Danapur in Patna, has three sons and a daughter. While one of his three sons is pursuing MBA course, his daughter is studying at Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital in Muzaffarpur. His two other sons are employed, an investigating officer said.

Official records suggested that Kumar had earlier served as SDO of Madhepura. He owned a major chunk of land at Neura. “Details of the unaccounted wealth of the arrested RCD executive engineer are being collected,” the investigating officer said.

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