Aurangabad : The Aurangabad unit of Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) carried out a raid on the house of state information commissioner and former personal assistant to Chhagan Bhujbal, Deepak Deshpande, on Friday and Saturday.
The ACB exercise ended up with the seizure of 1 kg of gold jewellery, 2 kg of silver, investment papers of Rs 1 crore, four bank lockers, two flats, three plots and two cars apart from a bungalow in Aurangabad. The raid was carried out on his house as he was secretary in the public work department (PWD) and close to Bhujbal during the period when the Maharashtra Sadan construction scam was committed.
According to highly placed sources of ACB, Deshpande, who is state information commissioner in Aurangabad bench, has a palatial bungalow near Padmapura on Railway Station Road. The search with the participation of over 15 cops, some of them women, began on Friday around at 6 pm and lasted nearly for over 24 hours. ACB officials suspect that there may be some more immovable property registered in his name in the cities apart from Aurangabad and Thane. His Thane house also was searched by the Thane ACB unit, however details of the raid couldn’t be obtained.
It may be noted that ACB has registered a case of embezzlement to the tune of crores of rupees against Chhagan Bhujbal in Mumbai. The raids have been carried on the houses of those high rank officers of PWD who were close to him.
Sudhir Dharmadhikari
