Bengaluru: Karnataka Lokayukta Police on Tuesday raided mining baron and former Bharatiya Janata Party minister Janardhan Reddy's home and office. The raids are conducted simultaneously in at least seven places in Bellary and Bengaluru.
A 42-member team of sleuths from the anti-graft watchdog was involved in the operation, a Lokayukta official said.
Documents pertaining to exports of alleged illegal iron ore and property were seized during the raids led by Lokayukta Deputy Superintendent of Police Sampath Kumar, the official said.
Reddy has been under investigation by both Lokayukta and CBI over his mining deals and the illegal mining activity carried out when BJP was ruling Karnataka between 2008 and 2013. Reddy spent over two years in jail and has been out on bail.
Speaking to reporters in the midst of raids, BJP Lok Sabha member B Sriramulu, a one-time close associate of Reddy, alleged that the raids were nothing but "political vendetta" by the Siddaramaiah government.
Sriramulu alleged that the Congress government in the state was using Lokayukta with "political motives".
He said he would soon file a complaint with CBI against some close associates of the Chief Minister and his son, alleging their links with illegal sand mining.
The once powerful Reddy from the mine-rich Ballari district spent about 40 months in jail before being out on bail in January.
Reddy and his brother-in-law BV Srinivas Reddy, managing director of OMC, were arrested by CBI on September 5, 2011 from Ballari.
In the OMC case, the company is accused of changing mining lease boundary markings and indulging in illegal mining in the Ballari Reserve Forest area, spread over Ballari in Karnataka and Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh.
(With additional information from PTI)
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