Several items of gold, diamond and cash had been recovered by the CBI teams from the houses of former minister Janardhana Reddy and his cousin Srinivas Reddy about a fortnight ago, before they were arrested and produced in a Hyderabad court, which has remanded them to custody.
The probe team, which had brought Srinivas Reddy from Hyderabad on Friday night for further investigation, had a tough time opening the lockers at the Axis Bank branch on the Siruguppa-Bellary Road in Parvathi Nagar. Srinivas Reddy claimed that he had forgotten where he had kept the key to the locker, even after being prodded by the CBI staff several times.
The CBI team requisitioned the services of two youths from the Jogera community, who make keys, locks as also duplicate keys. But they had a hard time trying to open the lockers. The locker was finally opened around 2 pm by a lock-and-key ‘expert’ brought from Anantapur. More than eight safety lockers related to Reddy were inspected.