By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Police on Wednesday arrested a senior state government official after he was caught accepting bribe to clear some pending bills of a firm.
The Joint Director of Mechanical-Directorate of Agriculture Ropsil Lamare was caught red handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 1 lakh from the owner of M/S Horizon Marketing Tura, Ashok Agarwal, for clearing all the subsidy bills pertaining to power tillers supplied by the firm.
The arrest was made under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1998.
According to police, Lamare had demanded Rs 5000 for releasing single subsidy bill and accordingly asked the firm owner to pay him Rs 3 lakh for releasing all the bills (numbering around 45 to 50).
The subsidy bill for each power tiller is Rs 45,000 of which Lamare had charged Rs 5,000 against each bill claiming it as ‘his share’. Lamare had asked the owner of the firm to pay Rs 1 lakh on Wednesday and remaining Rs 2 lakh on Monday next.
A trap was laid by the special cell of the city police and Lamare was caught red handed accepting the money.
