The Bengaluru police on Friday recovered over Rs 40 crores of demonetised currency in a raid conducted at a former corporator’s office. “We found the illegal cash in the house of ex-corporator Nagaraj, 54, during a search conducted on a court warrant in a criminal case and seized the banned notes in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination,” Hennur Police Station Inspector N. Srinivas said.
Nagaraj was not present when the police knocked at his house around 5.00 a.m., as he allegedly fled on learning about the search team.
Police also faced resistance from Nagaraj’s family in entering the house and had to break open the main door with the help of a blacksmith for the search operation. “As the search operation is continuing, further details will be given later,” said Srinivas.
In a bold move, the government had on November 8 last year demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 100 currency notes. Since then series of raids have been conducted by IT and various state police to unearth black money.
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#WATCH: Police raids office of former corporator V Nagraj in Bengaluru, recovers more than Rs. 40 crores of demonetised currency pic.twitter.com/GePuOpdmUp
— ANI (@ANI_news) April 14, 2017
Nagaraj is alleged to have been involved in converting black money into white by exchanging the old currency notes since they were banned. He was elected as an Independent corporator of the Bangalore Municipal Corporation in 2002 from the Prakashnagar civic ward in the city’s west.
He also contested the 2013 state assembly elections from the Gandhinagar segment in the city centre as a candidate of the Badavara Sharmikara Raitara Congress (BSR-Congress) but lost to ruling Congress nominee and former minister Gundu Rao.
The ex-corporator is alleged to have recently kidnapped a city businessman for ransom and is also facing criminal charges of laundering unaccounted money.
(With inputs from IANS)
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