Raid at engineer’s house yields unaccounted wealth

The Lokayukta police on Friday conducted simultaneous raids at the residences of a senior engineer working with the Madhya Pradesh public works department (PWD) and his brother in Indore and recovered documents pertaining to immovable properties worth crores apart from one kilogram gold.

The Lokayukta police on Friday conducted simultaneous raids at the residences of a senior engineer working with the Madhya Pradesh public works department (PWD) and his brother in Indore and recovered documents pertaining to immovable properties worth crores apart from one kilogram gold.

The raids came after the Lokayukta police received complaints that PWD executive engineer Anand Prakash Rane had amassed assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. (Arun Mondhe/HT)

The raids came after the Lokayukta police received complaints that PWD executive engineer Anand Prakash Rane had amassed assets disproportionate to his known sources of income. The raids were conducted at Rane’s Shahnai Residency house and his brother Vijay Prakash Rane’s residence at Balaji Heights in Mahalaxmi Nagar. Vijay is a contractor in the PWD.

Rane was present in his house when the Lokayukta sleuths came knocking at 6 am. He cooperated with the search operations, officials said.

During the raids, it came to light that Rane and his family members had bought costly properties, including two houses each in Gwalior and Bhopal and at least four other flats. The Lokayukta team also recovered eight passbooks of different banks and a bank locker.

According to Lokayukta police, Rane, who hails from Gwalior, joined the PWD department in 1992 as an assistant engineer and over the years served postings in Gwalior, Dhar and Dewas.

His father retired from the forest department 16 years ago as a Vanpal (forest guard).