After 40 hours of continuous investigation and after presenting strong evidence related to the multi-crore Valmiki Development Corporation scam, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials arrested former minister, lawmaker B. Nagendra has been taken into custody. The arrest of Minister Nagendra this morning is a milestone in the investigation. This morning Nagendra was arrested from his house in Dollars Colony in Bengaluru by the Enforcement Directorate officials who forcibly brought him to the ED office in Shantinagar. A thorough interrogation was conducted there, after which Minister Nagendra was taken into custody.
Evidence against Nagendra- In the trial of accused Padmanabh, the bank account was opened as per Nagendra's instructions.The legislators and ministers have not done anything wrong in the scam. Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar used to defend that. Congress leaders were arguing that Nagendra had resigned as minister for an open and fair investigation. The fact that the Enforcement Directorate has intensified the investigation has caused embarrassment to Congress.B. Nagendra, MLA from Bellary Rural Reserve Constituency, previously worked as Minister for Scheduled Tribes Development, Youth Services, and Sports. Doubts were raised about Nagendra's statement due to Assistant Harish's statement. Nagendra's close aide Harish is also in ED custody since yesterday. Some witnesses have been found in the statement of Harish about opening an illegal account in Union Bank by giving false documents and transferring the money of the corporation worth crores of rupees there. As a result, Nagendra was taken into custody for further investigation.
The ED officials raided many houses and offices, checked the documents, interrogated relatives and did not let Nagendra and his family out of the house for 40 hours. Nagendra said that he had no clue about the Rs 187 crore scam in Valmiki Corporation. In this scam, the Enforcement Directorate has verified the evidence of several transactions, including the transfer of Rs 80 lakh to the account of a minister's aide.In the last two days, more than 57 places of the 18 accused, including Nagendra and the president of the corporation, Basanagowda Daddal, were raided. The agency covered around 20 locations in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Maharashtra as part of a case registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the sources said. It is important to mention that Rs 89.9 crore was illegally transferred from the corporation's Union Bank of India account into several unauthorized accounts. Chandrasekaran, who was the superintendent of the corporation, committed suicide at his home in Shimoga by writing a long four-page letter explaining the scam. After that the case became serious. The state government had formed a special investigation team and ordered an investigation. An investigation team of officials, including the state police, arrested only the officials of the corporation, including the managing director, who were allegedly involved in the scam, the money launderers and the middlemen who facilitated it. Although Chandrashekaran's letter written before his suicide mentions that he had created a substitute account on the minister's verbal order.