Bengaluru: Ex-estate keeper admits selling antique furniture worth Rs 19 lakh

Bengaluru: The city legislator’s estate keeper, Uthappa Sabu, admitted on Thursday that he had sold the stored furniture and other materials from his master’s estate. “I accept that I sold some of the furniture that was stored at the estate to one Syed Ahmed, who purchased it for Rs 48,000. But the furniture and other materials were all old and scrap. I also accept that the total worth of materials that I had sold could only amount to Rs 2-3 lakh, but not Rs 19 lakh as claimed by MLA’s PA,” he told Deccan Chronicle.

“I was getting paid Rs 100 per day a month and that would be Rs 3000 a month with which I had to run the family in a city like Bengaluru. If I had stolen and sold goods that amount to Rs 19 lakh, I wouldn’t go for the same kind of job in another estate in Hassan,” Uthappa said.

Meanwhile, the legislator’s PA Ramesh said, “Uthappa had stolen and sold huge rolling shutters, gates, and furniture, which were moved to the estate when our MLA’s 100-room hotel in the city was getting renovated. Not only that he had also sold off the teak doors and window frames, which amount to lakhs of rupees.” He (Uthappa) had told the buyers that he was the owner of all the stored goods in the estate and had sold them to one Syed and many others. We are in the process of getting one person after the other whom all Uthayiah had sold the furniture to,” Ramesh added.

“When I discovered this misappropriation, the embarrassed Uthayiah had fallen on my feet and pleaded to me that I should not bring it to the notice of the MLA, as he had a family to take care. I obliged him on that day and that was my mistake,” Ramesh told DC.

“Later when he started to play smart by quitting the job and threatening me, I informed ‘sir’ and lodged a police complaint at Kumbalgodu police station in Bidadi for the theft in 2011. Last week he had again called me in a drunken state and threatened me that he hails from Madikeri and he could do anything to take revenge on me, and hence I approached the Ashok Nagar police,” Ramesh added.