Crisp currency notes are raining everywhere in Andhra Pradesh. Police is stumbling upon wads of currency notes wherever they are laying their hands during the search operations. In less than a week, the authorities have seized unaccounted cash of more than Rs4 crore from different places, the highest Rs1.36 crore on a single day Tuesday. On Wednesday about Rs30 lakhs were seized at different places including Mahbubnagar and Warangal districts. What has created a ripple in the state that in one such recovery of cash, Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy's son in law and evangelist Anil Kumar was also found involved. The police recovered Rs10 lakh from three pastors from a hotel in Karimnagar where Anil Kumar was also present. According to the police officials the money was found from the supporters of different political parties. The police have launched massive operation of putting check posts and searching vehicles. More than four hundred such check posts have been put in place across the state where vehicles were being searched to prevent the illegal flow of money and liquor and smuggling of explosives and weapons ahead of elections. An amount of Rs1.85 lakh was recovered from a vehicle in Kollapur district and four supporters of Congress candidate J Krishna Rao were arrested. In a similar search operation in Medak city, Rs2.5 lakh cash was recovered from the dickey of a car belonging to a close friend of Congress candidate Shashidhar Reddy. Ravulapalem police in East Godavari district recovered and seized cash of Rs89 lakhs. The police also banned a bank manager who was taking Rs36 lakh in cash from Palakole to Rajahmundry in East Godavari. He could not give any satisfactory explanation as to why he was transferring the money from one place to another. Rs7.12 lakh was seized from a person on Hyderabad-Visakhapatanam bus. Rs15 lakh and a gun was seized in Khammam district and Rs6.8 lakh in Nizamabad district. On Wednesday police seized cash of Rs2.90 lakh in Shadnagar from the supporters of PRP candidate Bhushes of Wanaparthy constituency. Earlier police had seized Rs10 lakh from the vehicles of former minister and PRP leader T Sitaram in East Godavari district. The incident of recovery of Rs10. 40 lakh from three pastors and the presence of Anil Kumar has taken a curious turn as the police inspector in Karimnagar Ganpath Jadhav returned the money to the pastors after they claimed it had nothing to do with the elections and the money was brought for their religious work. But the state director general of police A.K. Mohanty has expressed his unhappiness and took Karimnagar district superintendent of police Vikram Singh Mann to the task and sought an explanation from him. This is second time Anil Kumar is finding himself in such a situation. Earlier, the opposition parties had alleged that he was involved in distribution of money to the voters in Khammam district. It was alleged by the opposition that he was taking suitcases full of money in his helicopters to different places for election purposes. Taking note of the suspicion that even helicopters could be used for transport of wads of currency notes, the DGP has ordered the police officials to keep a close watch on every helicopter used by the VIPs during the election campaign and also search the vehicles and the baggage of such VIPs. “Not a single person should be exempted from the search,” he said suggesting that even the Chief Minister and other top politicians will not be spared from search operations.
