Senior Indian Administrative Service officer BM Vijay Shankar was found dead at his home in Bengaluru on Tuesday, The News Minute reported. Shankar, a former deputy commissioner of Bengaluru (urban) district, was an accused in the Rs 2,000 crore I-Monetary Advisory scam.
“He was found dead at his residence on Tuesday,” Bengaluru Commissioner of Police Bhaskar Rao told the news website. “We have registered a case of unnatural death and the matter is under investigation. Cause of death cannot be concluded as suicide yet.”
The South East Division Police in Bengaluru said that the death appeared to have happened around 7 pm, when Shankar was alone at home.
However, his body was discovered an hour later. His body was taken to the morgue at Victoria Hospital. “We will know if he ended his life or not after the postmortem report is out,” a senior police official said.
A special investigation team had arrested Shankar in July last year. Shankar had been charged with receiving Rs 1.5 crore from Mohammed Mansoor Khan, the owner of I-Monetary Advisory, an Indian investment company. The IAS officer allegedly took a bribe in exchange for a favourable report after the Reserve Bank of India had asked the Karnataka government to investigate the firm’s business.
The investigating team had also arrested former Bengaluru North Assistant Commissioner LC Nagaraj and the village accountant, Manjunath, for allegedly taking a bribe of over Rs 4 crore from Khan.
The Central Bureau of Investigation took over the inquiry in November, and confirmed the allegations against Shankar and Nagaraj.
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