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The anti-corruption wing of the CBI,which is probing the racket involved in theft of railways coal consignments,carried out extensive search at two palatial houses and a farmhouse owned by a Railway Protection Force (RPF) sub-inspector over the last 48 hours.
A CBI official in Lucknow said the search was being conducted after the ongoing investigation into the racket found involvement of SI LB Singh and his son Umesh Singh.
The SI owns a house in posh Brij Enclave of Varanasi and another in Chandauli city. The sprawling farmhouse is also in Chandauli. The CBI team seized Rs 50,000 cash from the Varanasi house and documents relating to bank accounts,lockers and land ownership from both houses,the official said.
The CBI first unearthed the racket involved in siphoning coal consignments from goods trains and disposing these in the coal markets of Varanasi and Chandauli districts on July 25.
The agency had seized coal consignments worth over Rs 7 lakh unloaded from a goods train in Sonbhadra. Six fully-loaded trucks and trolleys and seven partly loaded trucks were also seized from the spot.
Three goods trains loaded with coal consignments from National Coalfields Ltd (NCL) at Sonbhadra leave for power plants every day. A gang used to get the trains stopped between the NCL outlet and railway stations of Anpara and Ambedkar Nagar for half-an-hour in connivance with guards and drivers and the coal was unloaded.
The CBI official said about 20 trucks were loaded with pilfered coal every night and each truckload was sold for anything between Rs 65,000 and Rs 80,000.
Former UP minister Markandey Chand and his family members allegedly emerged as the kingpins of the syndicate which has been involved in the theft for several years,causing NCL,which is a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd,losses running into hundreds of crores of rupees.
Three of Markandey Chands grandsons Niranjan,Chandra Prakash and Vishnu Pratap were arrested and some railway drivers and the guards were also taken into custody.
The CBI official said the investigation revealed that SI LB Singh and his son were helping Markandey Chands gang. The SI,who had been posted at Garhwa Road RPF outpost for last 10 years,used to remain present at the spots every day when the gang unloaded coal from the trains.
A few months ago,he was transferred to another district in eastern UP,but managed to get a posting in the crime wing of RPF at Dhanbad in Bihar. From there,he got an order issued to stay at the RPF office in Chopan,Sonbhadra,and lived in the railway flat at Chopan,which was allotted to him 10 years ago.
The SI and his son would be named as accused in the case,the CBI official added.
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