Home ministry official, 3 others held for graft in Raj
20/05/2018
Jodhpur, May 19: A Union Home Ministry official was among four people arrested by the ACB here for allegedly demanding and accepting bribe from Pakistani Hindu migrants for granting Long Term Visa (LTV), officials said.
Acting on a tip-off, Senior Office Assistant P K Mishra and his three agents - Ashok, Govind and Bhagwan Ram - were detained on Thursday night from a hotel in the outskirts of the city, Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials said.
The four accused were arrested last night after an FIR was registered against them, they said. One more accused a former assistant section officer of the Rajasthan Home secretariat, Kundan Lal, is at large, officials said.
Mishra, Kundan and the three agents had been deliberately not approving the applications of visa extension and LTVs to migrants from Pakistan for want of money, DIG (ACB) Ajaypal Lamba said. The three agents identified themselves as Pakistani migrants who have attained the citizenship of India, the officer claimed.
Lamba said the visa applications were sent from the foreign registration office here to the state home department in Jaipur which then forwarded it to the Union Home Ministry, where Mishra would not approve the application unless he would receive bribe through his agents.
Depending on the financial capability of these poor migrants, they would charge from Rs 500 to 2000 or even more, in some cases, for clearing their applications," Lamba said. Mishra would then visit Jodhpur to collect the money extorted from the migrants by his agents, he said. The DIG said Mishra has been engaged in extorting money for the last three years.
We have started an investigation in the matter and do not rule out possibility of more names in this racket," Lamba said. Hindu Singh Sodha, president of Lok Seemant Sangthan, an organisation fighting for the rights of migrants, termed it a huge racket that has been active since long. He demanded a high level inquiry into the matter.
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