KPDCL cashier in J&K's Sopore held for taking bribe

SRINAGAR: The J&K Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) said that it arrested a cashier in the Kashmir Power Distribution Corporation Ltd's (KPDCL) Sopore office on Monday while accepting a bribe.

An ACB statement said that a senior assistant-cum-cashier in the office of the executive engineer, KPDCL, Sopore was caught red-handed while demanding and accepting a bribe from a person for releasing his security deposit.

"ACB received a complaint against Mohd Shafi Bhat, senior assistant/cashier in the office of the executive engineer, KPDCL, Sub Transmission Division, Sopore, alleging therein the demand of bribe of Rs 10,000 for release of security amount to the tune of Rs 15,560," it said.

As per the statement, the complainant, who runs Print Plus, at Hazratbal, Srinagar, had, supplied stationery items and log books to the office of the executive engineer, KPDCL, Sopore, in 2021. While the payment was made for the supplies, the security deposit amount remained pending.

The complainant alleged that he approached the department for the release of the security amount many times, but one cashier (Shafi) kept delaying the same on one pretext or another and finally demanded Rs 10,000 as a bribe and that he had collected proof of this.

He finally approached the ACB, which registered a case and began investigations.

"During the course of investigations, the accused public servant was caught red-handed while demanding and accepting bribes from the complainant by a specially constituted team of the ACB headed by a DSP rank officer. He was immediately taken into custody after completing the legal formalities and the bribe amount was also recovered from his possession in the presence of independent witnesses," the ACB statement said, adding further investigations are on.