Bengaluru: Former deputy chief minister of Karnataka G Parameshwara's confidante allegedly committed suicide here on Saturday, days after income-tax sleuths raided the residence,office and education institutions of the former deputy chief minister.
Ramesh was found hanging from a tree near the Sports Authority of India grounds in the morning, the police said.
He hailed from Mellehalli in Ramanagar. He started his stint with Congress as a typist and became close to Parameshwara.
The sleuths who raided the residence, office and Siddharth Group of institutions belonging to Parameshwara two days ago and had grilled Ramesh too.
Lamenting the death, Parameshwara said he had told Ramesh to be courageous and face the situation boldly.
"Don't know why he committed suicide. This morning also, I spoke to him and told him to stay bold," Parameshwara told reporters. Parameshwara, who had served as the Congress state president visited the place where his confidante committed suicide.
Meanwhile, the Income Tax officials summoned Parameshwara to depose before them on Tuesday after two days of extensive raids at his office, education institution and
residence.
The income-tax department said in a press release on Friday that it had searched prominent business group in Karnataka which runs multiple educational
institutions on October 9.
It said it unearthed the conversion of seats, which were originally to be allotted by merit through counseling by the medical counseling committee into institutional quota seats through the dropout system.
The department said it had found incriminating evidence substantiating conversion of seats, commission payments to brokers and sale of seats in exchange of receipt
of cash.
Evidence of use of multiple agents for conversion of MBBS and PG seats have also been found, it added. Hawala transactions relating to movement of such cash have also been established, said the department adding that a total of Rs. 4.22 crore of unaccounted cash has so far been found including Rs. 89 lakh in the house of the main trustee.
Overall the total undisclosed income detected so far is around Rs. 100 crore considering the cash donations received for 185 seats averaging Rs. 50 lakh to Rs. 65 lakh per seat and total seizure of undisclosed assets of Rs. 8.82 crore.
