CANACONA: In a raid conducted on RTO office at Polem check post in the wee hours of Wednesday, Anti-Corruption Branch sleuths caught red-handed a RTO inspector on duty and two others for allegedly accepting bribe from motorists entering Goa.
Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) of Vigilance Department arrested Vaman Parab, the RTO officer on duty and his two accomplices namely Baswaraj alias Chotu from Mazali, Karwar and Jitendra Velip of Barcem, a watchman at the agricultural marketing yard office at Polem check post for allegedly collecting money from the commercial motorists entering Goa.
Eyewitnesses present during the raid said the ACB team lead by Inspector Gurudas Kadam along with 4 other staff attached to the ACB reached at Polem border at 2.30 am and laid a trap by parking their private registered vehicle at a spot to get a clear view of the RTO office.
The ACB officers found two youth in civil clothes allegedly acting as agents to collect cash from the drivers of the commercial vehicles entering Goa.
Once the ACB officials found the officer on duty at RTO office accepting money from the drivers to allow entry of their vehicles into Goa, the officers raided the office and found unaccounted cash of over Rs 50,000 with the RTO inspector, eyewitnesses said.
The ACB after conducting panchanama and other formalities arrested Vaman and the two others acting as agents to collect cash from motorists on RTO officer’s behalf.
Sources said that on interrogation, the youth from Mazali admitted that every two hours the RTO officer used to visit his house, a couple of kilometres from Polem border with the cash collected to keep it in safe custody and would return to the office to avoid getting caught with huge amount of cash.
In the presence of activists, he confessed to having over a lakh of rupees kept in his house which was collected from the motorists during that night.
Enquiries revealed that the ACB team was approached by a citizen from Canacona, who informed them of the corruption taking place at the Polem check post. Based on this information, the ACB team had conducted a dry run before raiding the RTO office on Wednesday night.
Sandesh Teleikar, a member of Jagruk Canconkars said that thousands of commercial vehicles enter Goa through Polem check post daily. To escape from the harassment, the motorists end up bribing the RTO officials on duty.
