Early Times Report
Jammu, Mar 11: With the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi in general and the Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha in particular having pledged to weed out corruption from Jammu and Kashmir, the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI is getting more teeth to crush the menace that ruined J&K for over seventy years.
Sources said New Delhi has recently given a “free hand” to the CBI to go “all out against the corrupt” and that “each and every complaint should be taken up seriously for being taken to its logical conclusion.”
Till now, the CBI would generally find a role for probe of major scams. “But now the investigating agency will also be dealing with comparatively smaller cases of corruption even pertaining to a few thousand rupees of bribe,” said source privy to the corridors of power.
Sources said the CBI has gone even more active in Kashmir where from the complaints of corruption in the administration have been on rise.
It is pertinent to mention that the CBI has already raided offices in Kashmir in connection with the complaints of corruption.
In the latest, the CBI in an early morning raid, nabbed one revenue official demanding bribe from a man in Srinagar.
Sources said the CBI was aware about the deal that the land official wanted to strike with the applicant and caught him “red handed.”
Sources said in a bid to deal with more and more complaints the CBI has sought augmentation of its staff strength in the union territory.
Sources said the war against corruption would be intensified from April and that New Delhi has directed the investigation agency to make Jammu and Kashmir “corruption free.”
Sources said the CBI has been given a free hand on corruption following series of meetings in the national capital where in it was discussed that even in the last around three years of New Delhi’s direct control on J&K, there was no end to corruption.
Observers said the CBI is being seen as a best bet in combating corruption as some of the “repeat offenders don’t take local agencies like anti-corruption bureau that seriously.”
“The brand CBI is enough to send shivers down the spine of the corrupt and the more they (SBI) get active, the more JK will be benefitted in war against corruption and that is the strategy,” said an official. |
