Driver kills himself, hurls black money charge against baron

Bengaluru, Dec 7 (IANS) A driver who committed suicide alleged that his boss got Rs 75-crore unaccounted money converted into white for the grand wedding of Karnataka's mining baron G. Janardhan Reddy's daughter last month, police said on Wednesday.

K.C. Ramesh, 31, who died by consuming poison in a lodge at Maddur town on Tuesday, said in his note that his boss Bheema Naik told him about converting Reddy's black money into white for the November 16 wedding in Bengaluru, Mandya Superintendent of Police C.H. Sudhir Kumar told IANS.

Maddur in Mandya district is 85 km from Bengaluru.

An FIR was registered on a complaint from the driver's brother K.C. Mahendra. A six-page suicide note in Kannada was recovered from the lodge room where Ramesh was found dead, officer Kumar said.

The case was filed under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code -- abetment to suicide.

A former BJP minister, Reddy performed the marriage of his only daughter Brahamani, 21, with Rajeev Reddy, 23, a businessman from Hyderabad, in the Bangalore Palace grounds at an estimated cost of Rs 500 crore.

"We have formed a special team to investigate the case. We will summon Naik, whom Ramesh has mentioned as a land acquisition officer in the revenue department in Bengaluru and then Reddy on the basis of what Naik tell us," said Kumar.

The suicide note also revealed that Naik had laundered the black money at about 20 per cent commission from Reddy after the government demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 8.

"The note also claimed that Reddy along with BJP's Lok Sabha member B. Sriramulu met Naik at a star hotel in Bengaluru for several days ahead of the wedding," said Kumar citing its contents.

Denying the charge, Sriramulu told reporters in New Delhi that he or Reddy had nothing to do with the charge.

Ramesh said he was forced to take his life following death threats as he had information on how Reddy converted the black money for the wedding.

In a notice served on November 21, the Income Tax department asked Reddy how much money he spent on his daughter's wedding.