Hyderabad: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Sunday conducted searches of the house of one Syed Burhanuddin, who claimed to be working in the Prime Minister’s Office and had sought illegal gratification of Rs 1.5 crore to bail out an IAS officer of Chattisgarh.
The Central Bureau of Investigation seized two kilos of gold and Rs 20 lakh in cash during the searches on hawala operators linked to the accused.
In 2010, the CBI had booked two cases against B.L. Agrawal, a 1998 batch IAS officer, who was the then health secretary of Chhattisgarh, and is now principal secretary of the higher education department of Chhattisgarh.
He has already been charge-sheeted in one case while the other is under investigation. A case has been booked for criminal conspiracy and under the Prevention of Corruption Act against the accused.
Agrawal also gave 2kg gold
The CBI found that Agrawal had approached one Bhagwan Singh, a resident of Black Cat Enclave NSG Housing Society in Greater Noida, UP, and sought his help to get relief in CBI cases against him.
Bhagwan contacted Burhanuddin alias O.P. Singh alias O.P. Sharma, son of Syed Iqbal Ahmed, a resident of Road No. 2, Filmnagar, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad.
Burhanuddin gave an assurance that he would settle the matter in favour of Agarwal for Rs 1.5 crore, to be paid to the “public servants and themselves concerned”.
Bhagwan arranged a meeting between Agrawal and Burhanuddin in Delhi on February 11, 2017. During the meeting, Agrawal agreed to pay Rs 1.5 crore in instalments.
On February 12, Agrawal paid Rs 15 lakh as first instalment at Raipur to a hawala operator identified as Sanjay Taparia. A chain of hawala operators identified as Kanti Pugalia and Amit would deliver the cash to Bhagwan. A total of Rs 45 lakh has been delivered.
Later, Agrawal expressed difficulty in arranging for cash and agreed to give 2 kg gold. Burhanuddin asked Agrawal to deliver the gold to his contact at Raipur.
On February 18, the CBI caught Burhan-uddin and the others when the gold was being delivered to the party in Raipur.
