Rakesh Astahna diverted Police funds to BJP election funds

A retired SI alleged in an email to the CBI that Rakesh Asthana had diverted Rs 20 cr from the Police Welfare Fund to the BJP election fund.

News Desk 

A retired police sub-inspector has alleged in an email to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that when CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana was posted as the Special Commissioner in Surat, he had siphoned off Rs 20 crore from the Police Welfare Fund to the BJP election fund.

CBI Special Director Asthana was being probed for corruption by CBI Chief Alok Verma. Verma had filed an FIR against Asthana, after which, both were ‘sent on leave’ via an overnight order.

According to an Ahmedabad Mirror report, the email also alleges that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat at the time, and that the siphoned money has not been returned yet.

Reportedly, RTI activist Mohammad Sohail Shaikh had filed an RTI application to seek information on the alleged misappropriation of funds because the family of a deceased policeman had not received financial assistance.

Shaikh told Ahmedabad Mirror, “Questions were raised as to why the family of the deceased cop was not provided funds from the police welfare fund that was set up for precisely that purpose. I was in touch with a PSI who told me there was no money in the welfare fund as they had been given away for BJP election fund. There was no account of the funds and no papers.”

The papers pertaining to the Police Welfare Fund went ‘missing’ after a notice was sent by the income tax department for recovery of the TDS pertaining to the transferred Rs 20 crore, sources told Ahmedabad Mirror.

Also, both the Surat Crime Branch as well as the audit department had come to know about the alleged misappropriation.

Reportedly, in 2012, senior IPS officer Satish Verma, member of the SIT constituted by HC to probe Ishrat Jahan encounter case, in a complaint made to the Gujarat HC, had pointed out then Vadodara commissioner Asthana’s ‘unauthorised interference and collusion with State government’.