Official's homes raided, assets worth Rs 1.5 cr seized

They say excessive greed is never a good thing. GT Gowdar, deputy commissioner (excise) of Chitradurga district, learnt this the hard way when his demand for a bribe of Rs 50,000 put him behind bars on Thursday.

Not only has he been booked under the Prevention of Corruption Act, but his homes were raided and his assets worth Rs 1.5 crore confiscated.

According to investigating officials, Gowdar used to demand mamool (bribe) from shop owners. If they delayed in making the payment, he would raid their shops and threaten them to file cases against them under alleged violations.
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He would then fix a higher mamool amount.

Last month, he had raided 13 wine shops under his jurisdiction.

Ambushed
When Baba Reddy, one of the wine storeowners approached Gowdar on Thursday, Gowdar not only demanded Rs 1 lakh bribe to close the case against him, but also fixed a monthly mamool of Rs 1750 for each shop. He also asked Reddy to collect the monthly amount from all the 13 shops and give it to him regularly. Reddy agreed for the monthly mamool, but said he was unable to arrange Rs 1 lakh. After bargaining, Gowdar brought it down to Rs 50,000. Unable to pay, Reddy informed Lokayukta officials. Together, they laid a trap and caught Gowdar accepting the amount on the same day.

Homes raided
Soon after the trap, a team of officials conducted raids on Gowdar's houses in Davanagere and Gadag district on Thursday and Friday.

They found Rs 2.8 lakh in cash, 10 tolas of gold, 379 grams of silver, one Indica and a Maruti omni. They also found that he had Rs 12.2 lakh in his bank account and owned six acres of land apart from the two houses.

Additional Director General of Police R K Dutta said, "The property is disproportionate to Gowdar's known sources of income. Investigators are continuing to ascertain whether Gowdar owns property elsewhere in the state."