Fugitive rowdy Nagaraj releases video, accuses CM of money laundering

V Nagaraj, the history-sheeter who is on the run after police raided his house in Srirampuram on April 14 on the suspicion that he is running a banknote exchange racket, released an 18-minute-long video on Saturday, accusing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and four senior IPS officers of being involved in money laundering.

The video, shot at an undisclosed location, was delivered to Kannada news channels by Nagaraj’s lawyers.
Nagaraj insisted that he was in Bengaluru, contrary to police’s affirmation that he was hiding in Tamil Nadu. He said he would get bail in four days and then appear in public. He demanded a CBI enquiry into the raid on his house and the recovery of Rs 14.8 crore in scrapped banknotes. He claimed the scrapped notes found in his house belonged to Manjunath, the special personal assistant to the chief minister, and four senior IPS officers.

He said Manjunath was running the racket through his proxies — Kishore, a car dealer from Sadashivanagar, Madhu, the son of JD(S) leader Sriramaiah, Umesh, a realtor, and his brother Naveen.

“Their boss is none other than Siddaramaiah. Manjunath has stashed huge cash in his house in Sheshadripuram. The five (Manjunath, Kishore, Madhu, Umesh and Naveen) visited me 10 times between February 16 and April 6 seeking my help to exchange the scrapped notes. But each time they asked me to switch off the CCTV cameras in my house. Now, police have cooked up a story that these men filed a complaint against me. I do not need to indulge in money laundering as there are other ways of making money,” he said.

The runaway rowdy said 90% of police officers were wheeler-dealers extorting money from the poor. “I wasn’t at home when police came for me. My wife telephoned me to inform about the raid. I called up former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, who was in Delhi, and told him what happened. Police themselves had brought the old currency. They planted the banknotes in my house before journalists arrived. Later, they took away the money. I had kept some new currency in the house. Police took away them, too,” he said.

Nagaraj suggested that police had brought a fake gun to lay a trap for him. “They wanted to throw down the gun and then shoot me with a real weapon. They intended to show that they fired at me when I was about to shoot them,” he said.

The rowdy wondered why the Hennur police inspector registered a complaint against him though he had never been to Banaswadi or Hennur.

Nagaraj said his sons, Gandhi and Shastri, were social workers and he, too, had been carrying out philanthropy since 1991. “I spend Rs 2 crore every year on donating books to children. (KPCC working president) Dinesh Gundu Rao and (Bengaluru Central MP) P C Mohan used the police to open a history sheet against me as they considered me a stumbling block to their political career. I moved the high court eight times to get the history sheet removed. I entered politics because of the late Jeevaraj Alva who wanted me to become an MLA. I contested elections four times and a few people tried to defeat me,” he said.

He claimed that at least
Rs 5,000 crore in demonetised currency was in circulation in Bengaluru. “The police commissioner should act against four IPS  officers. I will become a minister soon. P C Mohan will never win elections again because of my curse,” he claimed.