Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MP CM Ramesh on Monday cried conspiracy as his name surfaced in the in-fighting presently going on between top officials in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and said that BJP President Amit Shah was protecting CBI special director Rakesh Asthana.
The CBI on Monday arrested its DSP Devender Kumar in connection with bribery allegations against its special Director Rakesh Asthana. Meat exporter Moin Qureshi, who is facing multiple cases of money laundering and corruption, had paid bribe to get a case against him settled, the agency said.
"Kumar, who has been the investigation officer in the Moin Qureshi case, has been arrested on the allegation of falsification of records," the agency said.
According to the CBI, Kumar fabricated the statement of Sathish Sana, a witness in the Quershi case, showing he recorded the statement on September 26 in Delhi. However, investigation has revealed that Sana was not in Delhi. He was in Hyderabad on that day and joined the investigation only on October 1.
According to media reports, Sathish Sana, who was also a businessman, in his statement told the CBI that CM Ramesh had mediated with CBI director Alok Verma to secure relief in a case against him.
"The arrested CBI Dy SP fabricated the statement against me. If the government is behind the fabrication, what can we say? It all started after I was re-elected to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) with an absolute majority...After that, I was warned of consequences and this happened in the form of I-T raids against me and now, there is a conspiracy to frame me in the alleged corruption case of Asthana," Ramesh told the Times of India.
Kumar's arrest comes a day after the CBI registered an FIR against Asthana, Kumar and two others. The CBI has alleged that bribes were taken at least five times in December 2017 and October this year.
Asthana, a 1984 batch Indian Police Service officer of Gujarat cadre, is accused of accepting a bribe of Rs 2 crore from a businessman who was under probe in the Qureshi case in order to "wreck" the investigation. The case was being examined by a special investigation team (SIT) headed by Asthana.