Cash, jewellery seized from Reddy kin’s bank lockers, driver

IANS

Bellary, 18 September 2011: Cash, documents and gold jewellery were Saturday found in several bank lockers of B Srinivasa Reddy, managing director of arrested mining baron G Janardhana Reddy’s Obulapuram Mining Company, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sources said here.

 

Around Rs 10 lakh, gold jewellery and documents showing lands owned by the Reddys in Karnataka and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh were found by a CBI team in the lockers in an Axis Bank branch in this north Karnataka town, about 300 km from Bangalore, the sources said.

 

Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Police on Saturday seized Rs 4 lakh from the house of Janardhana Reddy’s driver and also searched the houses of relatives of a former government official in the illegal mining case against the Reddys.

 

Srinivasa Reddy, brother-in-law of Janardhana Reddy, was brought to Bellary from Hyderabad early Saturday to help locate the lockers he operated in this town, which is the political base of the Reddy brothers.

 

Two lockers were broken open as both Srinivasa Reddy and the bank said they had lost keys to it, they said.

 

In Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur town, police searched the residence of Basha, the driver of Janardhana, and seized Rs 4 lakh, two kg of silver articles and some documents.

 

The driver of the former Karnataka minister is being questioned by police, who also searched the houses of former director of mining VD Rajagopal and seized some documents, sources said.

 

The searches were conducted while a court in Anantapur district Saturday remanded in police custody truck driver Venkatarami Reddy and his assistant Eswar Reddy, from whose vehicle Rs 4.9 crore stuffed in three sacks were recovered.

 

The two were arrested at Guntakal in Anantapur district Thursday when they were transporting the cash from Bellary district. They reportedly told police that the cash belonged to Srinivasa Reddy.

 

Janardhana Reddy and Srinivasa Reddy were arrested from Bellary Sep 5 by the CBI in connection with OMC’s illegal mining activity in Andhra Pradesh and taken to Hyderabad for interrogation.

 

The two have been interrogated for the last four days by the CBI which has been given their custody till Sep 19 by a Hyderabad court.

 

Srinivasa Reddy has also been questioned over the seizure of around Rs 4.9 crore from the truck in Guntakal as the truck driver had told police the money belonged to Srinivasa Reddy.

 

The CBI has also questioned Janardhana’s brothers, elder G Karunakara and younger G Somashekara, at the agency office.