BENGALURU: After more than a two-month long silence, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday took over the illegal lottery scam in Karnataka and registered a case in the FIR - 64/2015, which was initially registered by the then Excise Enforcement & Lottery Prohibition Wing, Kolar Gold Fields, under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 188 (disobedience to order promulgated by a public servant), 420 (cheating) & 34 (common intent) of IPC and Section 5 & 7 of Lottery Prohibition Act against a private person, resident of Bemi Nagar, and unknown others.
The CBI notification has come as a “rude” shock to some police officers, including ADG rank officers, whose names have reportedly appeared in the call detail records of the prime accused Pari Rajan. The CBI notification on the registration of case has erred in the mention of the address of Rajan, resident of BEML Nagar, Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) who was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in May and is presently lodged in judicial custody at Central Prison, Bengaluru.
The scam broke out in March after two warring cops in Mysuru fought in the open after one of them refused to share the bounty from the illicit lottery scam, headed by Rajan, and exposed the illicit nexus between the police and Rajan to a vernacular TV channel. They conducted a sting operation in which Rajan flaunted his proximity to some police officers, including senior IPS officers.
The Government had suspended Superintendent of Police of the now defunct Excise and Lottery Prohibition Wing Dharnesh and Inspector General of Police Alok Kumar, whose CDR allegedly reflected that he was in constant touch with Rajan and had even instructed a sub inspector, who had arrested Rajan not to go ahead with the arrest.
The Karnataka government in its March 27, 2007 notification had declared the State as “Lottery Free Zone,” illegal single digit lottery and cricket betting flourished in the State with the help of police patronage. The racket involving its top police brass has reportedly been going on for the last one and a half years and may haunt the State government like the infamous Abdul Kareem Telgi fake stamp paper scam.
The Excise and Lottery Squad, which was set up in 2007, ended up eating out of the hands of the same bootleggers and kingpins, which it was mandated to finish. It has been disbanded.
