SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Aug 19: A joint team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from Ranchi and Dhanbad raided the house of Jharkhand State Taekwondo Association (JSTA) vice-president Prabhat Kumar Sharma today in connection with the 34th National Games scam.
The team under Narayan, an Inspector rank officer of Ranchi CBI along with Dhanbad CBI officials, reached Sharma’s house based at Telephone Exchange Road under Bank More police station at around 10 am and began a search operation as well as interrogation after locking the gate from inside.
The ten-member CBI team was still at the house at the time of filing the report till 2 pm. Neither any official of the team nor a family member of Kumar was seen coming out of the building in four hours. The driver of the CBI car told that Saheb has come alone from Ranchi and other members joined him in Dhanbad.
According to information, a team of Bank More police station was also involved in the raid.
Prabhat Kumar Sharma was the general secretary of the State Taekwondo Association at the time of the 34th National Games in February 2011. He had held a conditioning cum training camp for the Jharkhand Taekwondo team at his Dhanbad-based house.
Later, Sharma became the vice-president of the state association and made his younger brother Sanjay Sharma, a national gold medallist, the general secretary.
CBI is conducting a probe on the 34th National Games over alleged irregularities in equipment purchase and embezzlement of public funds. The events of the 34th National Games in Jharkhand were conducted at Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad.
In the scam, the then sports minister Bandhu Tirkey, sports director of state PC Mishra, organizing committee working president RK Anand (senior lawyer of Supreme Court), organizing committee general secretary SM Hashmi, treasurer Madhukant Pathak and other office bearers of different sports bodies of state were named as accused in the scam.
In May, the CBI had searched the house of former sports minister Bandhu Tirkey. The house of SM Hamshmi in Dhanbad and other officials at Ranchi were also raided.
