Bellary, CBI officials continue raids targeting mining areas

Saturday, Oct 15, 2011

CBI officials continued their raids targeting mining areas of Bellary on Friday.

They reached Bellary at midnight on Thursday and began their operations from 9am after reaching Sandur taluk.

Earlier, raids were first conducted on Deccan Mining Syndicate (DMS) which is said to be involved in illegal mining that was carried out by Associated Mining Company (AMC) belonging to G Aruna Lakshmi, wife of former minister G Janardhana Reddy.

The 15-member team was headed by DIG and CBI, Hyderabad. The raids were conducted on the leased mining areas of DMS. This is the second such raid by CBI officials on DMS property.

The officials came armed with documents to prove DMS had occupied about 42 hectares illegally without getting any lease grants. AMC occupied 10 hectares without proper grants.

Tahsildar KB Shivakumar, range forest officer Gopal, mines and geology department official Shankar, ACF officer Venkatesh and others provided relevant information on illegal occupation to CBI officials.

The officials then visited NMDC and collected details of irregularities alleged committed by AMC.

The raids followed a Supreme Court order to investigate the irregularities that were committed by G Janardhan Reddy and others associated with AMC and OMC. CBI officials also conducted raids on a couple of close aides of Reddy in Bellary, Hospet, Toranagallu and DMS.

According to a CBI official source, first information report was prepared on 134 persons after the Supreme Court passed an order to register cases against Associated Mining Company (AMC) and DMS.

In the meantime, former Lokayukta justice N Santosh Hegde hailed the raids by CBI officials from Andhra Pradesh. They were able to arrest G Janardhana Reddy for his involvement in illegal mining.

Although CBI officials based in Karnataka had conducted raids a couple of times, nothing came out of that. Instead of raids, action should be initiated, Hegde said.

(sourced DNA)