Guwahati, June 15 (IANS) Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sleuths Tuesday seized a whopping Rs. 130.5 million in cash stacked in sacks and boxes from the house of a relative of a scam-accused official here.
The house, in Assam’s main city, is owned by Amjad Hussain, brother-in-law of R.H. Khan, one of the main accused in the multi-million rupee financial scam in Assam’s North Cachar Hills district.
Khan, a deputy director in the state social welfare department Deputy Director and one of the 14 accused by the CBI of conniving with militants in swindling development funds, is in jail.
‘The raid is still on and we found cash amounting to Rs. 13.50 crore stacked in sacks and iron trunks hidden in secret chambers concealed behind the garage walls and in other places of the house,’ CBI Deputy Inspector General H. Nomplo said.
‘We cannot say how the money came here and from where it came. It would require further investigations into the matter.’
The politician-militant-bureaucrat-contractor nexus involving government funds siphoned off in the North Cachar Hills district was unraveled by the National Investigating Agency (NIA) last year.
The NIA was entrusted by the central government in June 2009 to investigate a criminal case after Assam police arrested two Dima Halim Daogah (DHD-J) rebels in April with Rs.10 million cash and weapons.
The two arrested rebels, Phojendra Hojai and Babul Kemprai, told police the cash was handed over to them by Mohit Hojai, chief executive member of the North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council (NCHAC).
The NIA, in its final charge sheet, said elected members of the NCHAC helped the outlawed Jewel Garlosa faction of the DHD-J to siphon government funds.
NIA, the new federal agency to combat terror, later handed over the case to the central government for CBI probe as there were government officials involved in criminal misconduct.