Hyderabad: 3 engineers, surveyor in ACB net over Rs 1 lakh bribe

Hyderabad: The officials of the ACB (Anti-Corruption Bureau) caught four government officials red-handed while accepting a bribe on Thursday.

The officials have been identified as executive engineer K Bhansi Lal and assistant engineers K Karthik and Nikhesh Kumar from the office of superintending engineer, Irrigation Circle, Ranga Reddy in Red Hills, Hyderabad.

The fourth accused is P Ganesh, a surveyor at the MRO office in Gandipet.

The ACB officials caught them while accepting a bribe of Rs 1 lakh from the complainant Bommu Upendranath Reddy who had alerted the ACB on the issue. The complainant told the ACB that the accused wanted a bribe to for showing official favour i.e. ‘to process and forward the NOC permission file for the construction of a building at Neknampur, Manikonda of the complainant’, as per the statement from the ACB.

The ACB statement said that Bhansi Lal, Karthik and Nikhesh Kumar initially demanded Rs 2,50,000 as a bribe and had accepted Rs 1,50,000 as advance. Later, Ganesh demanded and accepted Rs 40,000 for conducting a survey. The accused were held for 'performing their public duty improperly and dishonestly.'

The bribe amount of Rs 65,000 was recovered from Bhansi Lal’s possession and Rs 35,000 from the possession of Nikhesh Kumar. The fingers on both hands of the accused yielded positive results in the chemical test. The four officials were arrested and produced before the special judge for SPE and ACB cases in Nampally, Hyderabad. Further investigation is on.

Public advisory

The public is requested to contact the ACB on the toll-free number 1064 if they find any government official demanding a bribe for implementing any government work.