Two thugs are conning people right inside the state legislature of Karnataka — Vidhana Soudha. They collect money on assurance of allotting people houses under the Slum Development Board near Yelahanka dairy circle. They are like the popular Hindi cinema’s ‘Bunty aur Babli.’ While ‘Bunty’ or Nagappa is an employee at the excise ministry’s secretariat, ‘Babli’ or Padmavathi, is often seen with the former claiming to be a personal secretary to the IAS babus at Vidhana Soudha.

Now the sleuths of the Central Crime Branch (CCB) are investigating to ascertain the extent of their crime. “Nagappa has been claiming to be close to the excise department minister M.P. Renukacharya. Padmavathi who is often seen with Nagappa in the corridors of Vidhana Soudha claims to be close to the IAS officers,” a CCB sleuth said. The duo allegedly cheated Ravi Kumar, a resident of Nandini Layout, Girish and some others by collecting money from them. Ravi works in a liquor marketing company and was also earlier working as a daily wage labourer in the excise department.

Nagappa used to introduce Padmavathi as the personal assistant to the President of the Slum Board. Padmavathi used to assure the victims that they would be allotted houses constructed by the Slum Development Board near the Yelahanka dairy circle in April 2010. She told them the houses cost rs 5-6 lakhs but that she could them on payment of just Rs 2 lakh. The victims who used to dream of owning a house in the city managed to collect money and handed it to the duo.

The victims were taken near the construction site and were even showed the houses which would be allotted to them. To convince the victims, Padmavathi even took them to the Slum Development Board’s office at Seshadripuram, made them wait outside and returned with a seal on the application for the houses. She told the victims that the money had to be equally distributed between the slum board development’s president and to the brother-in-law of the board’s commissioner. As a surety of having received the money, they duo even gave the victims an empty cheque leaf and a promisory note, the CCB sleuths said.

When there was a delay in the allotment of the houses, the victims went and checked with the slum development board. Only then did they know that they had been conned.