BENGALURU: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Lokayukta corruption case has reportedly issued look out circular (LOC) against Syed Riyazathullah alias Riyaz, the Joint Commissioner of Public Relations in Lokayukta, an accused in the case.
Sources in the SIT told Deccan Chronicle that as Riyaz is absconding and there is information that he is Saudi Arabia, LOC has been issued against him. “As per our investigations, it is confirmed that he has gone to Saudi Arabia with an intention to evade arrest. There is no clarity when he would return and it is expected he would not come back for a few months. Thus, senior officials of the SIT decided to issue LOC against him. Now, the LOC has been circulated in all major airports of the country,” an official said.
“We have taken the details of his journey to Saudi Arabia and are still collecting many other details. We have collected crucial evidence against him and he needs to be interrogated about this. As and when he enters India, he will be arrested,” the official added.
The official said that Riyaz’s involvement was found in each and every extortion case. “As per the investigation done so far, Riyaz carried out the extortion racket with the help of his assistants and other gang members. It has also come to light that there were differences between the gang members over sharing the extortion money. They were also waiting to send out a warning to Riyaz, before the scam came to light with Executive Engineer Krishnamurthy’s compliant.”
Ashwin’s arrest soon
The official also said that the main accused in the case, Ashwin, would also be arrested very soon. “We do not want to take any chances. We have decided to pick him up only after we collect concrete evidence against him. The process is underway and he would also be arrested anytime soon,” he added.
Sonia Narang files complaint
Following allegations made against her by V Bhaskar, an accused in the Lokayukta corruption case, Lokayukta SP Sonia Narang has filed a complaint in the Vidhana Soudha police station. She has also filed a complaint against a regional TV channel for broadcasting news based on the allegations made by Bhaskar.
In an audio clip released on Thursday, Bhaskar had alleged that Ms Narang was not a clean official and had bought a few duplex flats, worth over Rs 2 crore. Following this, Ms Narang went to the Vidhana Soudha police station on Friday evening and filed case against him. In the same complaint, she also stated that a regional news channel had carried his version in an insulting way.
The Vidhana Soudha police have registered the case under sections 506 (criminal intimidation), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
Ms Narang told that she had filed a complaint against Bhaskar and a regional channel. There were also rumours that she met the Chief Secretary to complain about the same issue, but she clarified that she had just filed a police complaint and had not met Chief Secretary.
Houses of scam suspects searched
The SIT officials continued their investigation in connection with the Lokayukta corruption case. On Friday, they took the arrested trio to their houses and carried out search operations.
Senior officials of the SIT said that no more arrests were made in the case and only three were held so far. “The efforts are on to trace the other accused and they will be arrested soon. We are continuing with questioning the arrested accused and gathering information from them,” an official said.
The SIT team took accused, Ashok Kumar, M.B. Srinivasa Gowda and Shankare Gowda, to their houses, where search operations were conducted on Friday. “Ashok Kumar’s house and office in Rajajinagar and Hebbal, Srinivasa Gowda’s flat in Magadi Road, hotel in Chandra Layout, and his house in Kolar were searched. While, Shankare Gowda was taken to his house in Kemapura. Several documents and other things were seized during the search operation,” the official said.
