As fire ravages BMTF office, staff jostle for work space

After a massive engulfed their office at BBMP headquarters recently, the Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force (BMTF) staff are finding it difficult to carry out investigations into the Rs 3,200 crore funds scam as they don't have a roof over their heads

After a massive engulfed their office at BBMP headquarters recently, the Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force (BMTF) staff are finding it difficult to carry out investigations into the Rs 3,200 crore funds scam as they don't have a roof over their heads.

Abdul Sattar, BMTF inspector sitting in Superintend of Police Cabin as the authorities are yet to provide them a work place after fire gutted their office at BBMP headquarters

The civic body has not been able to even provide a makeshift office to the BMTF handling such a crucial case. According to sources, the task force wants to continue the probe with whatever scam-related documents they could salvage from the burnt files, but no help is coming their way from any quarters.

Apart from files, BMTF officers' other belongings such as their uniforms were also gutted in the fire. Around 17 staff members, including two inspectors, had kept their uniforms inside their compartments allotted by the department.

But the fire turned everything into ash.

"I was recently transferred from the excise department and had big plans for the department. However, my new uniform that I'd left at office was reduced to ashes," said Abdul Sattar, Inspector, BMTF, who joined office two days before the fire.

Belongings lost
Some of Abdul's colleagues also lost a lot of personal belongings to the fire. One of the staff members had collected his daughters' graduation marksheets from the Bangalore University and left it in his office. But Gavi Siddappa came back to office only to realise that the certificate had been burnt to flames.

"My daughter completed a distance learning course from the BU and because of my hectic schedule I had
forgotten to take the certificate home. The next day everything was burnt," said Gavi Siddappa, Inspector, now with Lottery and Excise squad.

Reduced to ashes
The state government had issued a letter to the BMTF, to hand over all the investigation records to CID. The government has further directed the BMTF to transfer all the details in a day.
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The BMTF had earlier claimed that the department had framed charges against 13 people in their preliminary investigations. They had also received 153 files related to Gandhinagar, Rajarajeshwarinagar and Malleshwaram constituencies that were nailed in the TVCC report.