Patna: A team of the Special Vigilance Unit (SVU) arrested two officials from Sikandra in Jamui district on Tuesday while they were allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 50,000. The arrested are Santosh Kumar, municipal executive officer, Nagar Panchayat Sikandra, and Sonu Kumar, swachhata sathi at the nagar panchayat executive officer’s office.SVU additional director general of police Pankaj Kumar Darad said a complaint was lodged by Rajesh Kumar Mishra, a resident of Lahila Tola under Sikandra police station in Jamui district. “The complainant alleged the duo was demanding more than Rs 1 lakh as bribe for approving his application under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY). During verification by the SVU team, the accused reportedly told the complainant his application would not be approved unless he paid Rs 50,000 as the first instalment,” he said.Santosh allegedly demanded Rs 2,500 per applicant from ward councillor Rajesh Kumar Mishra for clearing PMAY applications in ward no. 03, where around 60 applicants had applied. He threatened to reject the applications if the bribe was not paid.Following the complaint, SVU police station registered a case on Tuesday against the duo under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended in 2018) and Section 61(2)(a) of the Indian Penal Code.“Physical verification of applications across 12 wards in Sikandra was conducted through geo-tagging. A raid team led by Sudhir Kumar, deputy SP, SVU, Patna, conducted the operation. Both accused were nabbed on their office premises,” Darad said, adding that interrogation is under way and further legal action and investigation are in progress.
