ACB raids RTO teams in Jhalawar dist

Kota: The Kota Anti-corruption Bureau (ACB) personnel, posing as helpers and conductors in loading trucks in two different teams, on Monday evening carried out sudden raids on two check posts at Teendhar on National Highway -52 and Raipur on state highway in Jhalawar district. The team unearthed a net of corruption and extortion in transport department of Rajasthan.

The ACB teams caught red-handed six regional transport office (RTO) personnel including an inspector and two touts while they were extorting and collecting unaccounted money. The ACB recovered a huge unaccounted amount from the RTO personnel, however, counting and further interrogation into matter is still underway. IG, ACB VK Singh monitored the entire operation.

Kota ACB had been keeping a close watch over the activities of RTO staff of Jhalawar district for about six months after the reports of extortion and unaccounted collection of money by RTO personnel including the inspector from the truck drivers on Kota-Indore route and Kota-Bhopal national highway were received, said additional superintendent of police (ASP), ACB, Kota, Chandrasheel Thakur.

When the adequate relevant evidences and facts of unaccounted collection of money were collected during the watch and monitoring that was carried out with advanced high quality cameras and technical equipment capable to capture recording from about a kilometer for about six months, IG Singh directed the officials to carry out the raids, he said.

Ten ACB personnel in two five-member teams, posing as helpers and conductors in trucks, randomly boarded on the way to Raipur and Teendhar check posts on Monday afternoon and caught six RTO personnel including inspector Dara Singh and two touts while they are extorting and collecting money from the truck drivers without giving them, in most of the cases, any receipt of the department, ASP Thakur said.

A huge accounted amount was also recovered from their possession, he said. As per monitored during the watch, the RTO personnel at intervals of hours would send the collected amount to some destination and in a day they tended to collect a huge unaccounted money, he said.

Further interrogation and inquiry into the matter is underway and the search at residential locations of the eight detained including the six RTO personnel is also going on, the ASP said.