CBI arrests Bihar Minister

PATNA, Nov 5 (PTI) — The CBI today arrested Bihar Minister for Road Construction Iliyas Hussain, four transporters and an assistant after conducting simultaneous searches on their houses at 24 places in Patna, Calcutta and Hazaribagh in connection with the multi-crore bitumen scam.

Mr Hussain was arrested from his residence in connection with the cases instituted by the agency for his alleged involvement in the misappropriation of bitumen worth Rs 200 crore between 1993 and 1996, CBI sources told mediapersons here.

The sleuths also took into custody a Road Construction Department assistant Shobha Sinha in Patna, transporters K.K. Kedia, S.K. Parikh in Calcutta and Bijay Kumar and T.P. Agarwal in Hazaribagh during the day-long raids on their houses and business establishments in connection with the cases.

All those arrested would be produced before the court of the designated CBI judge tomorrow.

The sources claimed that the CBI sleuths detected cash investment in real estates, other valuables and some documents during today’s raids.

They, however, said the recoveries were being scrutinised and it would take a couple of days to finalise a list.

Earlier, a team of CBI officials led by the SP, Patna, Mr Harinath Mishra, raided the official residence of Mr Iliyas Hussain at Bailey Road here around 0730 hours.

After a nine-hour search, the agency officials whisked away the minister to its zonal headquarters here where they confirmed his arrest. They, however, refused to give details of the seizure.

The minister refused to comment when waiting mediapersons approached him. The officials also raided his houses in Rohtas in connection with the cases.

The sleuths conducted simultaneous searches in houses and establishments of the state Road Construction Department’s engineers and employees at seven places in Patna, 10 in Calcutta, four in Hazaribagh and two in Rohtas, the sources said.

Among those whose houses were searched were Mr Sahabuddin Baig, private secretary to the minister, Mr Sobha Sinha, an assistant in the Road Construction Department, Mr Dhaneshwar Baitha, former Engineer-in-Chief, Mr Kedar Paswan, technical assistant to the Engineer-in-Chief and engineer Mustaq Ahmed, the sources said.

All of them are named accused in the three cases related to the bitumen scam.