Prime suspect arrested in bed allotment scam

Accused allegedly known to Bommanahalli MLA Satish Reddy who had ‘exposed’ the scam

The CCB, on Tuesday, arrested Babu, 34, one of the prime suspects in the bed allotment scam.

The accused is said to be known to Bommanahalli MLA Satish Reddy, who had earlier claimed to have exposed the bed allotment scam.

According to the police, Babu is a resident of Roopena Agrahara. He used to run the racket through Nethravathy, a social activist, and Rohith Kumar, who were arrested by the police some time ago.

While Nethravathy and Rohith used to get customers for the beds through their WhatsApp network, Babu used to coordinate the bed availability details.

The accused would give a commission to Nethravathy and Rohith while keeping the lion’s share of the money they would get from the bed allotment scam, which differed with each person based on their financial status, a senior police officer said .

Sources in the Bommanahalli war room said Babu was with Satish Reddy when the MLA stormed the war room with a crowd of over 50 people demanding beds. Among other things, they manhandled IAS officer Yeshawantha.

Police sources said that Babu was a known associate of the personal assistant of Satish Reddy, and but they had no information of his direct links with the MLA.

Satish Reddy was not available for comment. Responding to similar allegations of his involvement in the bed allotment scam, he had earlier told The Hindu that he had only asked for beds for residents of his constituency, which was being misconstrued as ‘bed blocking’.

The opposition Congress argued that the arrest of Babu, who they alleged is an associate of the MLA, had ‘exposed’ the BJP’s role in the alleged bed allotment scam. “Entire bed blocking scam was being done by the BJP. The strategy of the MP to communalise the issue blaming innocents to get away has now been exposed. Tejasvi Surya, where are you now? Will you be open to investigation of your role?” said a tweet by the Karnataka Congress.

Satish Reddy was with Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya when he stormed the South zone war room, live streamed an ‘expose’ of the alleged scam and read out names of 16 Muslim employees, most of whom lost their jobs, though there has been no evidence of wrongdoing on their part. At that time, Satish Reddy had made communally loaded statements against the 16 employees.

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