Bihar govt engineer caught accepting Rs 16 lakh bribe

Vigilance sleuths caught an executive engineer of the Road Construction Department red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 16 lakh on Monday.

Acting on a complaint, a vigilance team laid a trap and arrested Arvind Kumar from his residence here while he was accepting Rs 16 lakh in cash from a contractor, a vigilance department release said.

Kumar, a Katihar based executive engineer, had initially demanded Rs 84 lakh as bribe for executing a Rs 83.52 crore road maintenance work and finally agreed to accept Rs 80 lakh, it said.

The contractor who had won the tender had complained to the vigilance about the engineer's demand and officials of the agency caught him red-handed while accepting Rs 16 lakh as the first instalment of Rs 80 lakh from his flat.

Kumar will be produced in a designated vigilance court in Bhagalpur after interrogation, the release said.