Patna: The family of an engineer in Bihar burnt bundles of Indian currency notes and flushed them down the toilet at his home on Monday in a bid to destroy vital evidence shortly after he was arrested while accepting a bribe of Rs1.6 million (Dh81,839) in lieu of clearing a road project.
The anti-corruption sleuths are now investigating how many currency notes were burnt.
The arrested engineer identified as Arvind Kumar was posted with the Road Construction department in eastern Bihar’s Katihar district and was reportedly accepting the first instalment of Rs1.6 million bribe out of total Rs8 million he had sought for clearing Rs830 million-worth road project to a construction company.
The company is said to be owned by the wife of a ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmaker.
Acting on a complaint that the accused was seeking huge money as bribe, anti-corruption sleuths laid a trap and arrested the engineer from his Patna residence today while accepting the bribe money.
Reports quoting police officials said soon after the family came to know about the raids by the anti-corruption officers, they carried the bundles of crispy hard currency notes in the toilet and set it afire before flushing it down the commode. The police believe the burnt currency notes were accepted as bribe earlier.
The sleuths came to know about the incident after they found burnt piece of the currency notes flying in the toilet where they had reached in course of extensive searches of his house.
It is, however, not known how much cash was burnt.
“Prima facie it appears the currency notes and some documents have been burnt. We are investigating the matter,” a senior state vigilance official Manoj Kumar told the media on Monday.
A similar incident had been reported from Araria district of Bihar earlier when a police official chewed and swallowed currency notes after being raided by the anti-corruption sleuths.
Reports said a police official Murari Prasad Chaudhary had been demanding a bribe of Rs25,000 in cash from a youth in a case related to kidnapping of a girl.
Although the matter had been settled, the cops had been threatening the youth to send to jail.
Fearing he could be jailed, he agreed to pay the bribe to the cop. The youth paid Rs2,000 in the first instalment and then sought some time to arrange for the remaining cash. However, the youth in the meanwhile contacted the anti-corruption sleuths and briefed them about the entire story.
On the fateful day, the youth invited the police officer at his residence at lunch to get the remaining amount of Rs23,000.
However, as soon as the officer had received cash after enjoying rice and fish curry, the vigilance sleuths appeared on the scene.
Reports said in a bid destroy the evidence, the police officer chewed many currency notes and then swallowed it without thinking about its consequences yet he could not chew the entire bundles since it was too many.
Finally, he was arrested by the sleuths.
