Alerted by passersby, the police detained a man in the Vidhana Soudha parking area and found ₹14.5 lakh unaccounted-for cash on him on Friday.
The man has been identified as Mohan, who worked in Backward Classes Welfare Minister Puttaranga Shetty’s office in the Vidhana Soundha.
A senior police officer deputed for Soudha security said that passersby alerted the police at the parking lot near Gate 2 about a man carrying a huge amount of cash around 6.45 p.m. The man was exiting the premises when the police detained him. They found ₹14.5 lakh cash in his bag.
He was taken to the Vidhana Soudha police station and questioned about the source of the money. However, according to senior officers, he was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation. At the time of going to print, the man was yet to be arrested.
Mr. Shetty told presspersons that he had left for Chamarajanagar before the incident and had no knowledge of it. He added that he had fired Mohan from his office.
In a similar incident, a person was found with ₹2 crore unaccounted-for cash in his car in the Vidhana Soudha in October 2016. The car belonged to an advocate, and the driver, Siddharth H.M., was caught during a routine check by the police posted at the gates. The case was transferred to Anti-Corruption Bureau, where it is still pending.