Bengaluru: As the search operations at minister’s Sadashivanagar residence continued through Wednesday night through till Thursday morning, around 20 IT officials had spent the night in Mr. Shivakumar’s house with search operations beginning anew at 6.30 am on Thursday.
When they woke him up, he reportedly expressed his displeasure at the way the officials were behaving in the name of search operations. However, he is said to have cooperated to the officials and answered all their questions. When he was asked about the cash, the Rs 8 crore that was seized at a house in Delhi belonging to his close aide, Anjaneya, he is said to have asked his interrogators how he could be held responsible for the cash seized in a house that did not belong to him. He also allegedly refused to open three lockers at his house saying he had forgotten the pass code. Thus, the IT officials decided to bring in key makers and finally opened them. Though no cash was found, several documents found in the lockers were seized.
It is said that the documents were related to the minister’s business and investments. He is said to have business ties even with the leaders of other political parties and the officials reportedly found a document having details of Mr. Shivakumar’s helping the son of a former Chief Minister of Karnataka in getting a residential site.
Around 7 pm, the officials loaded a heap of seized documents in two cars and sent it off while they stayed back for further search and questioning of the minister. The operations are likely to continue even on Friday.
While there are reports that the documents seized at the minister’s house suggested that he had a friend who helped him make investments abroad, there was no official confirmation of the same. As Mr. Shivakumar is the Chairman of National Education Foundation that runs Global Academy of Technology in Raja Rajeshwarinagar, the IT officials also raided its premises on Thursday. It is said that that demonetised currency worth several lakhs of rupees were found during the search.
