Team Herald
PANJIM: A privately-owned food grain warehouse at Colvale was raided by a team of Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) early Friday morning, but soon the agency was accused of trying to cover up the matter.
However, police higher-ups have denied the allegation citing that the team members were carrying out the document-related formalities for registering an offence.
Sources said that huge stock of food grains which was stacked in the godown to be distributed to the fair price shops were in fact being smuggled to Kolhapur.
The ACB’s raid, based on the inputs, fetched them a positive result as hundreds of sacks were seized. One of the team members revealed that the raid at the private warehouse is located at Colvale from where the alleged illegal activity was carried out.
“The food grains were loaded in a truck which was supposed to be unloaded at Sattari, but instead these were smuggled elsewhere,” he said.
However, soon after the raid early morning, the ACB was accused of hushing up the case on instructions from influential official(s) in the police department. Sources said that the raiding team was not willing to register an FIR, an allegation denied by the ACB.
“We registered an FIR in the morning itself. Our raiding team members have been busy completing the paper works after the raids for which they had to come back to the office at Altinho. There is no question of delay or hush-up,” a senior officer told Herald maintaining that the ACB has not succumbed to any pressure in this case.
The department is however tight-lipped over the case details such as names of the accused, sealed premise, seized materials and the godown, etc.
Herald spoke to some senior officers who stated that they would not disturb the flow of the investigation. “An FIR is registered and the investigation is underway. As of now, we will not like to share any case details,” the officer said.
It is also not clear whether the food grains belong to the State government or an allocation under the National Food Security Act.
