Teams of Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) on Tuesday raided 16 premises of seven officers of irrigation department and recovered more than Rs3.25 crore in cash. Of these, two officers were caught red handed taking bribe, said Additional Director General (EOW) Mukesh Gupta.

Gupta told reporters that Chief Engineer of Irrigation Department (Hasdev Bango Kachhar and Ganga Kachhar) Brijraj Das Vaishnav was caught red handed from his residence, while taking Rs5 lakh as the first installment of Rs40 lakh demanded as bribe by him. The team also recovered Rs35 lakh cash from his residence in the search which continued till filing of the report.

Similarly Executive Engineer of Irrigation Department Makshi Kujur posted at Chui Khadan was caught red handed while taking Rs54000 bribe from a contractor at Civic Center, said Gupta.

The residences of the executive engineer of Kharang Reservoir division of the department Alok Agrawal and his close officers were raided by the teams. Agrawal was found in the residence of Vaishnav and was immediately frisked by ACB team. The team recovered some files and Rs1.5 lakh cash kept in envelopes from Agrawal.

Gupta said that during interrogation Agrawal revealed that he had kept cash with his subordinates. Police recovered Agrawal’s Rs2 crores from the house of sub-engineer Abrar Beg. In addition to this police recovered Rs7 lakh from Abrar Beg which belonged to him. Police raided the residence of Agrawal’s another subordinate sub-engineer GR Devangan and recovered Rs60 lakh kept by Agrawal.

Police raided the residence of sub engineer Vijay Singh Thakur and recovered lakhs of rupees. Police also raided the residence of contractor Pawan Agrawal who is brother of Alok Agrawal and going through the documents to know about the assets of Alok Agrawal.

Police teams have also conducted raids at the residence of Executive Engineer Gl Dhruv and searching his properties and going through details of his assets in Jagalpur, Durg and Dhamtari. The total cash seized in the operation was Rs3.25 crores till afternoon. The amount has crossed Rs5 crores by the evening, sources said.