Bengaluru: An employee working with the Karnataka Ministry of Backward Classes was taken into custody by the police on Friday evening from within the Vidhana Soudha (the state assembly) premises for keeping in possession Rs 14 lakhs of unaccounted cash.
The police said that the arrested has been identified as Mohan, the Personal Assistant to Minister C Puttaranga Shetty. He has been charged under various sections of the IPC.
Mohan was caught while he was trying to sneak out of the Secretariat premises with a bag of cash and an additional amount of Rs 11.76 lakhs was found with him when the police carried out a search on his bike.
Reacting to the incident, CM Kumaraswamy said, "Investigation is underway. I do not want to interfere in it. Appropriate action will be taken if he is found guilty of the charges levelled against him".
The BJP soon took to social media to accuse the ruling coalition government headed by CM HD Kumaraswamy of “running a mafia operating out of Vidhana Soudha”. The saffron party members also staged protests asking Minister Shetty to resign on moral grounds.
A typist working in office of Minister for Backward Classes Welfare was caught with Rs 25.76 lakh in unaccounted-for cash by the Vidhana Soudha police.There is no governance in this government, Its a mafia that's operating out of Vidhana Soudha headed by CM @hd_kumaraswamy.— BJP Karnataka (@BJP4Karnataka) January 5, 2019
Congress state president Dinesh Gundu Rao tried to downplay the incident by stating that merely carrying the money doesn't prove that it's ill-gotten.
"The police are investigating. Let him clarify why and for what reason was he carrying the money. In case it is found that anyone from the Congress party was involved, action will be taken and law will take its course," Rao said.