'I had sleepless nights but I'm in the right'

I came from a very poor family of Kethamaranahalli in Rajajinagar, a village in 1960s but now a big commercial area. My father gave all of us a good education.

Devaraju
Unearthed scams in municipal real estate and land development deals.

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I came from a very poor family of Kethamaranahalli in Rajajinagar, a village in 1960s but now a big commercial area. My father gave all of us a good education. I did my Bachelor in Engineering (Civil) study from RV Engineering college in 70s through scholarships from Nehru Foundation and others.

I got an assistant engineer's job in the city corporation (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike)_ in 1979 and became interested in quality control. I have dealt with projects including roads, drainage, de-silting, buildings and various projects.

I tried and was successful in stopping corrupt practices across various projects worth crores of rupees. But that also got me a lot of attention from the mafia and other corrupt people. I have been getting threatening calls from many years.

In the beginning, I spent sleepless nights. But then I introspected and felt that I was doing the right thing. I unearthed corruption across at least 34 big projects worth over Rs 2,600 crore.

In many cases, the accused would not threaten me. However, whenever the real estate mafia was involved, there would be a death threat.

Now I am 58 and just two years away from retirement. My worry is what will happen after I retire.