Hyderabad: Ramachandra Bharati, the main accused in the TRS MLAs’ poaching case, holds two passports, a probe by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Telangana Police revealed.
Bharati, one of the three accused already in judicial custody, has now been booked for possessing two passports in two different names.
A case has been registered against him at the Banjara Hills police station, on a complaint by Assistant Commissioner of Police B. Gangadhar, who is one of the members of the SIT.
The police booked Bharati under IPC sections 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and sections 12 of the Passports Act, 1967.
The accused holds one passport in the name of Shree Ramachandra Swami Ji and the other as Bharat Kumar Sharma.
The passports have different dates of birth and different addresses in Puttur, Karnataka, and were issued in 2019 in Karnataka.
The SIT found this during the analysis of laptop and iPhone seized from RBharati by Cyberabad police during a raid on a farmhouse at Moinabad near Hyderabad on October 26.
He along with two other accused Simhayaji and Nanada Kumar were arrested while trying to lure four TRS MLAs with offers of huge sums of money to make them switch their loyalties to the BJP.
The SIT will be writing to concerned officials to gather more details about the passports.
The investigating officials are trying to find if the accused used both the passports for his visits abroad.
Bharati was booked earlier this month for forgery. On a complaint by one of the TRS MLAs Pilot Rohit Reddy, Banjara Hills police booked him for possessing fake Aadhaar, PAN cards and driving licenses.
Bharati, a priest from Faridabad in Haryana, is alleged to have close links with some top BJP leaders.
At a news conference on November 3, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had released photographs of the multiple identity cards of Bharati.
He allegedly possesses Aadhaar, PAN cards and driving licenses in two names — V. K. Satish Sharma and Shree Ramachandra Swami Ji.
This was part of the evidence released by the chief minister in the sensational case which triggered political tremors.
Bharati along with Simhayaji, a pontiff from Tirupati and Nanda Kumar, owner of a restaurant in Hyderabad were arrested by Cyberabad police during a raid on a farm house at Moinabad near Hyderabad on October 26.
The police made the arrests on a tip-off by Pilot Rohit Reddy, who alleged that the accused offered Rs 100 crore to him and Rs 50 crore each to three others.
–IANS