BHUBANESWAR: A day after arresting water resources department assistant engineer Kartikeswar Raul on corruption charges, the Odisha vigilance on Saturday arrested his second wife following detection of additional Rs 1.4 crore cash from a small kutcha house in a slum of Bhubaneswar, officials said.
According to the vigilance officials, Kalpana Pradhan, the second wife of Raul, was arrested for actively abetting the offence of the engineer and helping him conceal the illgotten money. She is being forwarded to the designated court on Saturday, they said.
After arresting Raul on Friday, the vigilance officials interrogated Kalpana (second wife of Raul). During interrogation, she confessed to having concealed more cash, gold etc in her sister's house at Salia Sahi (a slum area of Bhubaneswar).
Based on this input, a team of Odisha vigilance raided the one room house of Kalpana's sister early this morning and seized Rs 1.41 crore cash along with 360 gms gold and 1004 gms silver belonging to Raul.
With this, the total cash seizure in this case has risen to Rs 3.41 crore, which is the highest ever cash seizure by Odisha vigilance in a case, informed the officials.
Further, property documents indicating purchase of a triplex bungalow by Raul at Pokhariput in the capital city on cash payment of Rs 78.50 lakh were also recovered by the vigilance.
The vigilance, which is conducting raids on the properties of the engineer and his family members since April 6, has so far detected cash of Rs 3.41 crore, gold weighing 940 grams, 1 kg silver, double-storeyed building, a three-bedroom flat, a two-bedroom flat at Khandagiri in Bhubaneswar and a double-storeyed building at his native village in Ganjam and a triplex bungalow at Pokhariput.
Besides, five plots in Ganjam, two land plots in Bhubaneswar were also detected by the anti-corruption wing. Fixed deposits and insurance premiums to the tune of Rs 37.23 lakh and other expensive household articles were found in the possession of Raul.