JOIN USFugitive Divya Hagaragi’s assets, passport to be seized, says Karnataka HM Araga Jnanendra
Karnataka Home Minister Araga Jnanendra on Thursday said that the police sub-inspector recruitment scam accused Divya Hagaragi was "on the run" and that authorities may consider attaching her properties and confiscating her passport.
Hagaragi, a former BJP functionary, has an arrest warrant against her.
“She’s on the run. We’re following up on her locations. Authorities will seize her assets and confiscate her passport. All necessary action will be taken to make sure she doesn’t go anywhere,” Jnanendra told reporters. “Let her surrender honourably. Otherwise, the police know how to get her.”
Hagaragi is said to be involved in rigging the recruitment of 545 police sub-inspectors for which a written examination was held in October last year. Following allegations of irregularities, the government ordered a CID probe.
“Such irregularities were happening for years. We wanted to get to the root of it and expose the gang that was selling government jobs and burying the hard work that people used to put in to prepare for the recruitment,” Jnanendra said.
Jnanendra also hit out at Congress MLA Priyank Kharge for refusing to appear before the CID. The investigation agency had asked Kharge to depose evidence. “Priyank had made several allegations. He had said he had a CD and things like that. When the CID asked him to share information about the scam, he refused. He only comes before the media,” the minister said.
Jnanendra further said Priyank’s aides are involved in the scam. “His own people got arrested as the kingpins. What does he have to say about that? Why did he keep quiet all these years?” he said.
When asked why the CID did not ask Animal Husbandry Minister Prabhu Chauhan to depose - he had written to the government on March 3 seeking a probe - the minister said: “The police know whom to ask. [Priyank] was the one who claimed to have evidence. And, if he had none, why did he threaten to release a snake from his basket?”
Frivolous, baseless: Priyank
Congress MLA Priyank Kharge, a former minister, wrote a 4-page letter to the CID. The agency had sent a notice to the lawmaker to depose on April 25. “I urge CID and its officers to kindly refrain from issuing such frivolous, baseless and unsubstantiated notices,” he stated.
“...I am quite baffled to know that insofar as the information that you have now sought from me through the notice, the said information has been in public domain for quite sometime now and that as an investigating agency you should have been the first to collect and collate such information before anybody else,” Priyank argued, accusing the government of trying to “scuttle and stifle free speech”.
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