Wedding plan scuttled as Bihar engineer caught taking Rs 10,000 bribe

[Miss Alone]

Bihar’s vigilance investigation bureau (VIB) spooked the marriage plans of an engineer of the energy department, arresting him for accepting a bribe of Rs 10,000 barely a week before he was to tie the knot.

While the wedding has been put off indefinitely, both his and the girl’s families are in a quandary as to how to deal with the situation. He was to get married on December 9.

According to a VIB official, assistant electricity engineer Satish Kumar was posted at Saraiya supply division of Muzaffarpur.

Kumar, who was arrested in Muzaffarpur on Thursday, became the 106th person so far this year to be caught red handed by the VIB, while accepting a bribe of Rs 10,000 from a farmer, Ram Babu Sharma.

Sharma, in his complaint to the VIB’s police station in Patna on November 23, said Kumar had demanded a bribe of Rs 20,000 to correct his electricity bill. But he was accepting Rs 10,000 in Rs 2000 denomination notes, when he was caught.

To put pressure on him, Sharma said the electricity department lodged a case against him at the Saraiya police station on October 18, accusing him of energy theft. Many consumers were being implicated in false cases to force them to pay bribe, he claimed.

“However, before paying the money to him I informed the VIB and they caught him red handed while I was offering him the money,’’ Sharma said.

An official of VIB said Sharma had decided to hand over the money to Kumar. However, he changed his mind at the last moment and decided to approach the vigilance bureau.

On the advice of VIB official he fixed the rendezvous and a 14-member team led by DSP Mohammad Jamiruddin caught the assistant engineer red-handed accepting the bribe.

A raiding team official told HT the team found evidence from the mobile phone of the accused indicating his involvement in bribery for a long time.

“Right now, we cannot say anything more because our investigation is at preliminary stage,’’ the officer added. Kumar had joined the post in 2014.

VIB DG Rabindra Kumar said the accused was produced before a special court in Muzaffarpur on Friday which sent him to judicial custody.