Telangana: ACB raids Hanamkonda additional collector’s house; Rs 30L seized

Hyderabad: Telangana Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) seized Rs 30 lakh and foreign liquor from the residence of Hanamkonda additional collector Venkat Reddy on Saturday, December 6.

The cash and foreign liquor were seized following a raid. Reddy claimed that the cash belonged to his relative. On December 5, Reddy, who is also the in-charge district education officer of Hanamkonda, was arrested along with two others for taking a bribe of Rs 60,000 for processing the renewal of a school contract.

In November, the correspondent of Creative Model School at Kothur Jenda area in Hanamkonda applied for renewal of the school to Venkat Reddy, who is also the in-charge district education officer.

The Hanamkonda mandal education officer submitted a report regarding the application. As the renewal of the school was delayed, the correspondent visited the DEO office and contacted the educational departments’ junior assistant, Kanneboina Manoj, and senior assistant, Mohammed Ghousuddin.

Manoj and Mohiuddin told the correspondent that Rs 1 lakh should be paid to the in-charge DEO for the renewal of the school.

The school correspondent contacted the in-charge DEO twice in the presence of the above clerks, asking him to reduce the amount, and he was told to pay Rs 60,000.

The ACB officials caught Manoj when he was receiving the amount from the correspondent at the backside of the Hanamkonda collectorate. Venkat Reddy was booked in a disproportionate assets case in 2008 in Nalgonda and faced corruption charges in the ring road land acquisition when he was Jangaon RDO in the past, Sambaiah said.

ACB inspectors S Raju and L Raju, along with Khammam Inspectors, took part in the raid. The accused official and the clerks would be produced before the ACB court in Warangal on Saturday, he added.