The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has taken former Karnataka minister and Congress leader B Nagendra into custody in relation to the Valmiki Corporation scam case. Nagendra, a Congress MLA, was escorted from his residence to the ED office in Bengaluru for questioning, as reported by PTI. "I'm being brought from my home.
..I don't know anything," Nagendra told reporters as he was being taken to the ED office.
This development comes days after the ED conducted extensive searches at Nagendra's premises as part of a money laundering probe linked to the alleged scam. The investigation began after the death of Chandrasekharan P, the accounts superintendent of the Corporation, on May 21. A purported suicide note left by Chandrasekharan accused several officials of orchestrating illegal money transfers from the Corporation's accounts to various other bank accounts.
Following this, two officials were suspended, and Nagendra, who was the Scheduled Tribes Welfare Minister, resigned from his ministerial post on June 6 under mounting pressure. In response to the scandal, the Congress government formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the matter, resulting in the arrest of 11 individuals connected to the case. Chandrasekharan's suicide note alleged the unauthorized transfer of ₹187 crore from the Corporation’s bank account, with ₹88.
62 crore reportedly funneled into the accounts of several IT companies and a Hyderabad-based cooperative bank. The Central Bureau of Investigati.