Lokayukta raids Yeddyurappa kin’s home

IANS

Bangalore, 20  September 2011: Police attached to the Karnataka Lokayukta (ombudsman) Tuesday raided the residence and office of scam-hit former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa’s son-in-law R. Sohan Kumar here in search of evidence over graft cases.

 

"We are searching the house at Vijayanagar (in west Bangalore) and office at Sheshadripuram (in city centre) for documents relating to graft cases against Yeddyurappa and relatives," a Lokayukta spokesperson said.

 

The raids began early Tuesday, he said. Reacting to the development, Yeddyurappa claimed he had come to know Monday that raids will be conducted.

 

"Let them raid my house also," he said in Koppal, about 300 km from here, where he is campaigning for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Karadi Sanganna for a Sep 26 assembly bypoll.

 

The raids come a day after Lokayukta Shivaraj V. Patil quit following a row over taking two housing plots from cooperative housing societies in Bangalore in violation of norms.

 

Patil, whose resignation was accepted by Governor H.R. Bhardwaj Tuesday, has denied violation of norms and termed the controversy as "malicious campaign" by a section of the media.

 

Yeddyurappa, his two sons B.Y. Raghavendra and B.Y. Vijayendra, Sohan Kumar, two legislators and several others are accused of conspiring to denotify land in and around Bangalore in return for monetary gains.

 

Raghavendra is BJP Lok Sabha member from Shimoga, around 280 km from Bangalore. A Lokayukta court headed by Judge N.K. Sudhindra Rao is hearing five complaints against Yeddyurappa and other accused filed by two Bangalore advocates Sirajin Basha and N.K. Balraj in January this year.