Bribe For Visas: Karti’s Close Aide Arrested; Know Why Vedanta Facility In Odisha Was Searched

Bhubaneswar: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested S Bhaskararaman, a close associate of Lok Sabha MP Karti Chidambaram, in connection with the alleged Rs 50 lakh bribery case for clearing visas of 250 Chinese nationals working at Talwandi Sabo Power Ltd in Punjab violating various immigration rules, early on Wednesday.

CBI sources told Express that Bhaskararaman was not cooperating in the investigation and was hence arrested.

The other four booked in the case are Karti Chidambaram, Vikas Makharia, representing Mansa (Punjab) based private company; Talwandi Sabo Power Limited, Mansa (Punjab); Bell Tools Limited, Mumbai (Maharashtra) and unknown public servants and private persons.

On Tuesday, the agency had conducted searches at 10 locations, including Karti’s Chennai house.

In Odisha, the facility of Vedanta Ltd in Jharsuguda district was raided to substantiate the involvement of Karti in manipulating the provision of VISA to some citizens of China since Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation, a Chinese company, which was outsourced the Talwandi Sabo Power Plant in Punjab also had an engineering, procurement and commission contract to set up the 2,400MW power plant of Vedanta in Jharsuguda, sources said.

The searches continued till evening. “The searches at our Punjab/Odisha facility have been part of a larger CBI investigation. We are extending full cooperation to the authorities and facilitating the due process,” a spokesperson of Vedanta said.