The
Hindu: Bengaluru: Monday, 29 June 2015.
The Lokayukta
police investigation into the alleged extortion ring led them to a group of
Right to Information (RTI) Act applicants before the probe was transferred to
the Central Crime Branch (CCB).
An
investigation into how the ring of extortionists zeroed in on officials to whom
they made calls demanding a bribe to prevent “raids”, led the police to a set
of suspicious RTI applications which may have been the starting point of the
conspiracy.
There is
neither a source report nor any complaint against Public Works Department
engineer Krishnamurthy, who was called to the Lokayukta office on May 5 and
asked to pay a bribe. Lokayukta sources said their probe had revealed that
there were RTI applications seeking details about the projects that the
engineer was handling, and Mr. Krishnamurthy got a call shortly after this.
Sources said
similar RTI applications had been noticed in various departments from where
officials had now reported that they got similar extortion calls from the same
man who claimed to be ‘Krishna Rao’.
“The extortion ring seems to have been
targeting officials after procuring information through RTI applications filed
by various individuals,” an official said.
With the
mobile phones of the extortionists now switched off and CCTV camera footage not
available, the police are now looking at interrogating these RTI applicants so
that they can zero in on ‘Krishna Rao’.
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