Punjab: 135 govt officials among 200 arrested in past 5 months for corruption

Over 200 people including 135 government officials have been arrested in Punjab during the past five months over alleged ''corruption'', according to an official statement issued here on Sunday.

Among the 135 officials arrested by the Vigilance Bureau for accepting illegal gratification, 25 are gazetted officers, the statement said.

The Vigilance bureau has also nabbed around 80 private individuals, it said.

''Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's war against corruption has met with unprecedented success in only five months since the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government came to power in Punjab,'' said he statement.

Some of the arrested include a minister in the present AAP government and a former minister of the previous Congress government. A top Indian Administrative Service officer and over 50 police officials are also among those nabbed.

''From sacking and subsequent arrest of AAP's health minister Vijay Singla on charges of corruption, the Mann government has also cracked the whip on big sharks including by arresting former minister in the previous Congress government Sadhu Singh Dharamsot in a corruption case, and 2008-batch IAS officer Sanjay Popli, who was posted as director (pensions), and Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Vishal Chauhan and many others,'' the statement said.

As the pace of work in the anti-corruption campaign picked up, in the month of July alone, eight government employees were arrested for accepting bribes in five different cases, it said.

The accused included two employees of the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) and three of the Ludhiana Improvement Trust. In seven cases, convictions were handed down by various courts in which eight government officials and a private person were involved, it further said.

The chief minister's anti-graft helpline is leading the way in exposing corruption and corrupt officials as people are coming forward to use this tool effectively to expose those who are blocking clean governance in the state, it said.

Complaints in the helpline alone led to the arrest of 61 people and registration of 40 FIRs, since its inception on March 23 this year. The government received 4,135 complaints with audio and video recordings on the number.