The Hindu : A tale of two bank accounts

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 10, 2003

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National

A tale of two bank accounts

By Vinay Kumar

NEW DELHI OCT. 9. A day after the raids on the residential premises of the Bahujan Samaj Party president, Mayawati, and her close relatives, the Central Bureau of Investigation today claimed to have laid its hands on at least two bank accounts in the name of her brother, Naresh Kumar, and mother, Ram Rati, where a "huge inflow of funds over the past few years has come to light."

Highly placed CBI sources told The Hindu that the account in the name of Ms. Rati was opened in 1999 in the City Union Bank branch at Karol Bagh and, on several occasions, a large inflow of funds was noticed. On some occasions, a single day deposit ran into several lakhs. Some of the withdrawals were being traced by the agency. The two bank accounts came to light during CBI searches, sources said.

The agency is also looking into several properties in West Delhi's Inderpuri colony which are suspected to be owned by Mayawati's relatives. During searches, in one of the houses in Inderpuri, the CBI officials "found exotic, expensive and specially cut floor tiles of marble and granite worth about Rs.1 crore."

The second account in the Karol Bagh branch of Canara Bank, in the name of Mr. Kumar, is traced back to 1998 on January 22 this year, it was noticed that at least six deposits of Rs. 5 lakhs to 6 lakhs each were made in the account. In August, about Rs. 1 crore was withdrawn and the account was left dry with just about Rs. 4,000 in it, according to the CBI.

Sources said they had reason to suspect that funds had come through "dubious'' channels and cleaned out in a "mysterious way.''

Deposits in these two bank accounts have flowed from at least 23 banks of Delhi, including foreign banks such as the ABN Amro, the Citibank, mainly located in Central, North or West Delhi. After tabulating the details, the CBI was trying to pin down the persons who had made deposits and those who withdrew large amounts.

Sources said that while Ms. Mayawati's mother was a housewife her brother also did not have income which would enable him to operate a bank account of this scale.

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