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Kamla Bora in Jaipur
An official responsible for the welfare of ex-servicemen and their dependents was arrested in Rajasthan on Friday while accepting a bribe from the wife of a Kargil martyr.
A team of the state Anti-Corruption Bureau laid a trap and caught the Jhunjhunu district soldiers' welfare officer, J S Bundela, red-handed while he was accepting a bribe of Rs 15,000 from Sushila, widow of soldier Amar Singh, who was killed in the Kargil conflict.
Bundela had promised to get Sushila Singh a petrol pump in exchange for a bribe of Rs 200,000, ACB Deputy Inspector General Shankar Surolia said in Jaipur.
He told the woman to bring Rs 15,000 as advance payment and travel with him to New Delhi for getting sanction for the facility from the Union petroleum ministry, Surolia said.
But the widow's brother-in-law (Amar Singh's brother), Subhash Jangid, contacted Brigadier Bhagwan Singh, secretary of the State Soldiers' Welfare Board, who in turn reported the matter to the ACB.
The ACB sent an inspector in disguise with Jangid and got discussions of the deal with Bundela recorded on tape. The bureau then laid a trap and nabbed Bundela on Friday afternoon.
Earlier too Bundela is alleged to have extracted from Sushila Singh a sum of Rs 100,000 to give her Rs 500,000 sanctioned by the state government for the next of kin of the Kargil martyrs from Rajasthan, Surolia said.
ACB officers are now investigating whether Bundela extracted similar bribes from the families of other Kargil martyrs.
They are also investigating the role of a senior clerk in the district soldiers' welfare office, Gopal Singh, who has been working there for the last 37 years.
Sleuths have searched the official and residential premises of both Bundela and Singh.
Meanwhile, the State Soldiers' Welfare Board is conducting its own independent inquiry into the role of other personnel working in the Jhunjhunu district office.
The districts of Sikar and Jhunjhunu send the largest number of youths to the army and more than 90 soldiers hailing from these areas died defending the country's frontiers at Kargil.
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