OMC MD taken to Bellary; gold, cash seized

BELLARY/ANANTAPUR/HYDERABAD: The CBI team brought Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) MD B V  Sreenivasa Reddy to Bellary from Hyderabad on Saturday morning and recovered 14 kg gold and Rs. 2.60 cr in cash from lockers and accounts with Axis Bank in Bellary.The CBI team’s visit follows the seizure of Rs. 4.9 crore at Guntakal on Thursday from a lorry which was heading towards Hyderabad from Bellary.The CBI team, led by its official Somaiah and four members, accompanied Sreenivasa Reddy, who is in CBI custody with former minister G Janardhana Reddy, in the illegal mining case.The CBI team, which reached Paramadevanahalli police station around midnight on Friday, lodged the accused at the station. They left for Bellary and reached Axis Bank on Siruguppa Road by 8 am. Police had a tough time controlling the crowds that gathered there.CBI is said to have gathered vital information about transactions amounting to crores of rupees allegedly conducted by Reddy in the name of OMC and also suspected to have about a dozen benami accounts. The role of an Axis Bank official in allegedly helping Srinivasa Reddy open several benami accounts is also being probed. As Sreenivasa Reddy had no keys to several of his lockers, experts were summoned from Anantapur to open them.Sources told Express that three teams set out on different missions. One team went to the house of Janardhana Reddy’s car driver Basha and after searches it found `4 lakh in cash, 2 kg of silver and some documents. The team also searched the premises belonging to former Mines and Geology director V D Rajagopal where they seized some documents.One more team seized some documents from the OMC MD’s house.A team led by CBI inspector Sudhakar and sub-inspector Seetaram visited Siddapur, Vittalapur and Tumati villages on the border and inspected MBT, HT and TNR mines, it is said.