The Lokayukta, Karnataka’s anti-corruption agency, carried out extensive raids on government officials in nine districts across the state on Thursday morning. Officials reported that over 100 Lokayukta personnel simultaneously conducted searches at 56 locations in connection with 11 Disproportionate Assets cases. The districts included in the raids were Kalaburagi, Madhya, Davangere, Chitradurga, Dharwad, Belagavi, Kolar, Mysore, Hassan, and Chitradurga.
The operations were jointly conducted by Lokayukta teams alongside police units led by Superintendents of Police from the respective districts. Among the officials targeted in the raids were Basavaraj Magi, Revenue Officer of Kengeri Division in Bengaluru; Shivaraju S, a retired Executive Engineer from Mandya; M Ravindra, a retired Chief Engineer from the Minor Irrigation Department in Bengaluru; and Shekar Gowda, a Project Director in Dharwad, among others.
Additionally, those under scrutiny included Mahadev Bannur, an Assistant Executive Engineer in Belagavi; DH Umesh, an Executive Engineer; MS Prabhakar, an Assistant Executive Engineer in Davangere; Vijianna, a Tahsildar in Kolar; Mahesh K, a Superintendent Engineer in Mysore; NM Jagadish, a Grade-1 Secretary in Hassan; and KG Jagdish, a Superintendent Engineer in Chitradurga.
This operation follows a similar large-scale raid involving over 100 officials conducted earlier in March across Bengaluru, Bidar, Ramanagara, and Uttara Kannada districts. In Bengaluru alone, searches were conducted at five locations. Prior to that, another significant raid involving 40 locations took place in February this year.