CBI raids senior BSNL official’s home, office

<div class="section0"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="">DEOGHAR: The CBI officials raided the office, residence and a hotel owned by Bansi Lal, senior divisional engineer, BSNL, presently posted at Dumka, on Wednesday and seized cash and ornaments worth crores. Several bank passbooks and investment papers were also seized during the raid.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">CBI SP RC Choudhary, who is camping here to supervise the raid, said a case was registered on April 4 against Bansi Lal in Ranchi under section 13(2) and section 13(1) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, on the ground that he has acquired assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">The CBI team conducted simultaneous raids at four places.Lal’s residence at Bompass Town and Hotel Shivam International at Deoghar, his office and a room of the hotel occupied by Lal at Dumka. Besides the hotel, the accused owns a mansion, spread over 17 "katthas" of land near Shiv Ganga here where the Gyan Niketan school is running. Papers of the land owned by him in Dumka (as mentioned in his IT return in 1994), accounts with SBI (main branch) Deoghar, Allahabad Bank, Jasidih, with a total deposit of 3.5 lakh, LIC investments, shares and debentures were seized during the raid.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">A cheque recovered from Lal’s possession shows that a sum of Rs 1.5 lakh was recently paid to one Irfan Ahmad in Patna for procuring the job of ASM for Lal’s son.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">A Maruti Alto car was purchased by him in 2003, which was financed by Allahabad Bank on three-year repayment term. But the entire amount was repaid within a year. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="">A brief case, containing Rs 35,000, was also seized from his car. The value of ornaments is yet to be estimated. The SP also said that the police are also investigating the fact whether Lal’s son, Sant Kumar, BE (MACT, Patna) who was kidnapped a few years ago, was released after paying heavy ransom or not. Raids were on till the time of filing the report.</span><br /></div> </div>