8 cr seized from BJP office staff

Hyderabad: The Central Zone Task Force sleuths on Monday seized Rs 8 crore in cash allegedly belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party and nabbed seven persons. It is learnt that Telangana BJP president K Laxman gave a cheque to the office assistants to withdraw money from Indian Bank at Narayanaguda in the city.

According to Task Force sleuths, in view of the closure of banks for three days on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, they kept a watch over main branches of all banks.

At about 1 pm, on credible information, they intercepted a car at Himayathnagar Y junction and seized Rs 2 crore from T Pradeep Reddy (32), private employee (in Harsha Toyota) and G Shankar (33, event manager), who was at the wheel.

Towards evening, Income-Tax officials and Election Returning officer reached the Narayanaguda police station and questioned the persons who are taken into custody.

The seven persons were quizzed for half-an-hour on the transactions of Rs 8 crore and the account related to the amount. After checking the documentary proofs of the transactions and cross checking with the bank officials, they left the police station.

On the police inquiry, Pradeep Reddy disclosed that the money was handed over to him by N Gopi at Indian Bank, Narayanaguda branch and also revealed that some more money was available with him at the bank.

The police reached the bank along with Pradeep and seized another Rs 6 crore from Gopi (47, office assistant of the BJP office) and nabbed four more persons G Sukumar Reddy (43), S Chalapathi Raju (53, office assistant of the BJP office), J Indu Sekhar Rao (70) and R Brahmam (31, another driver).

The Task Force sleuths handed over the seized cash and persons to Narayanaguda police for further action.