The Madhya Pradesh Lokayukta Special Police Establishment carried out searches at the Satpura Tiger Reserve Deputy Director Sanjeev Kumar Sharma’s house in Bhopal on Saturday. The search was linked to a disproportionate assets case. The LokYukta officials found heavy gold and silver worth lakhs seized.
Several Lokayukta officials reached Sharma’s house in Professor Colony and started searching the premises. Simultaneous searches were also being carried out at other locations linked to the forest department officer. This came after allegations against Sharma claimed that he accumulated assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.
What did the search reveal?
While carrying out the search, the Lokayukta official scanned documents related to properties, financial transactions and other investments to discover the extent of the alleged assets. The team also checked relevant records and other material to assess the officer’s financial holdings and compare them with his known sources of income.
The searches turned up Rs 2,636,800 in cash. A total of 2.528 kilograms of gold, valued at about Rs 3.5 crore, and 1.656 kilograms of silver, worth around Rs 2.94 lakh, were also found during the searches, NDTV reported. Apart from this, four expensive vehicles, including a Scorpio, a Mahindra KUV, a Royal Enfield Bullet and a scooter, were seized, the report claimed. Together, they are valued at about Rs 31.2 lakh. Household items worth roughly Rs 50 lakh were also found at the premises, according to the report.
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The Lokayukta Special Police Establishment is responsible for handling corruption cases involving public servants allegedly amassing wealth beyond their known sources of income.
Separate case
In another case, the MP Lokayukta police on November 4 raided three places in connection with Sher Singh Thakur, manager of the Adim Jati Seva Sahakari Samiti in Nalcha, Dhar district, following a complaint. According to Inspector Ashutosh Mithas, the searches allegedly uncovered that Thakur’s estimated salary during nearly 20 years of service was Rs 65 lakh. However, he had spent Rs 2.41 crore on properties purchased in his and his wife’s names during his tenure.
The properties included a two-storey house measuring 2,400 square feet, a 1,350-square-foot commercial building, 3.17 hectares of agricultural land at various locations, an earth-moving machine and several vehicles.