Srinagar, Mar 4: Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has caught 231 government employees red-handed accepting bribes during the last five years.
Details accessed by The Kashmir Monitor revealed that the majority of such cases have come from the Kashmir division, where a total of 178 government employees have been caught while accepting bribes from the people.
Jammu reported 53 cases of corrupt officials and employees being arrested by the ACB.
The ACB recorded the majority of the corruption cases from Srinagar district, where 43 government officials or employees have been caught red-handed accepting bribes for favors.
Srinagar is followed by Baramulla, where 40 such cases have been recorded by the ACB since 2019.
The rest of the districts of the valley, including Ganderbal, Pulwama, Kupwara, Anantna, and Budgam, recorded 17, 16, 15,14, and 14 cases, respectively.
In Kulgam, the ACB caught eight officials red-handed accepting bribes, followed by nine in Bandipora and two in Shopian.
Out of 53 cases of corruption in the Jammu division, Jammu district recorded the arrest of 24 corrupt officials in the last five years.
The ACB caught eight officials in the Rajouri district red-handed, followed by six in Udhampur, and four each in Doda and Kathua.
Three government officials have been arrested in bribery traps in Poonch and two each in Reasi and Ramban. As per the ACB data, no case of arrest of corrupt officials has come from Samba and Kishtwar in the last five years.
ACB sources said that these officials and employees belonged to different departments and had been demanding bribes from the public on different pretexts.
“It included both high and low rank officials. The ACB, after getting complaints against these officials, set a trap to catch them red-handed. The government has initiated immediate action against them as well by the law,” they said.
In addition to the apprehension of 231 corrupt officials, ACB sources said that over 500 cases of corruption have been registered in Jammu and Kashmir in the last five years.
“The war on corruption has been intensified across Jammu and Kashmir in the last few years. We are committed to ensuring a corruption-free Jammu and Kashmir. We have zero tolerance for any corrupt practices. Anybody involved in any corruption, no matter how big the officer is, will face the law,” said a top law enforcement officer.