Vigilance team nabs ITI head clerk for bribery, seizes Rs 22 lakh cash

Jamshedpur, April 7: A team of vigilance department sleuths from Ranchi seized Rs 22 lakh from the head clerk of the Industrial Training Institute located in Burmamines, while raiding his office and residence in Burmamines and Bistupur respectively on Thursday.

Led by deputy superintendent of police (vigilance) Shravan Kumar, a four-member team arrested the head clerk Bhushan Sharma with the money.

Jitendra Dubey, inspector vigilance, said that an aspiring candidate keen to get an opportunity for training at the ITI had put up an application recently. In the course of visiting the place, a supportive staff in the ITI’s Burmamines office asked the candidate to pay Rs 5,000 for processing his application.

According to Dubey, the candidate, whose name has been kept secret, contacted the vigilance department at Ranchi and appraised the authority concerned about the bribe.

After verification of the facts, the authority asked the said candidate to hand over a bundle of Rs 100 denomination to the supportive staff identified as Chandrika Bhagat.

According to Dubey, the vigilance authority had smeared some chemical on the notes.

Dubey said as per a plan, a four member team of the vigilance department had arrived near the ITI’s Burmamines office and as the candidate gave the bundle of notes to Bhagat, the vigilance team swooped over the office and took Bhagat under custody.

After interrogating Bhagat in the same office, the vigilance sleuths checked the drawers of the head clerk and found Rs 2.75 lakh in cash.

As the head clerk could not explain about keeping so much money in the drawer, the team took him also custody and soon took him to search at his residence in Ranikudar under Bistupur police station area.

According to the vigilance inspector, the team found over Rs 19 lakh from Sharma’s house.