Nine arrested in rice scam

MANGALORE: The CoD has arrested nine persons in Hassan pertaining to the multi-crore rice scam, which was unearthed in Mangalore in the last week of May.
This takes the total number of arrests in the rice scam case to 10. The first arrest was made a week back in Mangalore, the accused being Mahadevan of Maritime Shipping Company at Urva here.
The accused were arrested at Hassan on Sunday night and were brought to the city early on Monday morning.They have all been remanded to judicial custody for 15 days.
The arrested are: Hassan Food and Civil Supplies Corporation district manager Jinnaraju, Ramegowda, Prakash, K Ramesh, Jagadish, sambashivaiah, Venkataswamy, Kalegowda and K S Kumar, all managers of government godowns at Hassan.
When produced before the Hassan court, the court directed the accused to be produced before the Mangalore court.
It is learnt that the accused had smuggled the foodgrains released from Food Corporation of India (FCI) to Mangalore. CoD DIG Ravindranath is investigating the case and the Hassan case is being investigated by SP Krishnaraju.
Meanwhile, the bail application of Mahadevan, the first accused, was postponed for hearing on Wednesday. So also were the anticipatory bail applications of a few, who are being hunted by the CoD.
The petition of Mangalore Food and Civil Supplies Department seeking directions of the court for auctioning the rice will be heard on Tuesday.
Underworld connection: The underworld connection with the multi-crore rice scam became clearer with notorious elements threatening the visual media from capturing the accused being produced before the court on Monday.
When the accused Mahadevan was brought to the court premises, the cameramen were threatened by underworld characters, who were surprisingly escorting Mahadevan instead of the police from the district jail here. Also the police had used an autorickshaw to get the accused to the court, instead of a police vehicle. The police who were behind them were also exhibiting a don''t care attitude, when the rowdies openly told the cameramen that consequences would be dire, if they tried to capture the accused on camera.
In between, the cameramen had to avoid being hit by Mahadevan''s wife, who all the more felt encouraged to take a swipe at the media who were in a dilemma after being threatened by the notorious elements.