`500CR BENAMI PAPERS, STASH IN POSH CLUB

A businessman and permanent member of the Bowring Institute (BI), a prestigious club in the city, had reportedly stashed several incriminating documents of alleged benami properties in Devanahalli and Begur village in Bengaluru worth over `550 crore, cash worth `3.90 crore, diamonds worth around `8 crore, gold biscuits weighing 650 gms and two top international brand watches — Rolex and Peugeot worth lakhs of rupees — in three lockers in the badminton court of the club.

Besides the cash, diamonds and property documents, one of the bags reportedly contained several bank cheques of huge amounts, ranging from `5 crore to `50 crore.

“There was an entire signed blank cheque book,” said BI secretary Srikanth H.S.

A five-member team of senior staff of the club under directions from Srikanth on July 19 broke open the three lockers – 69, 71 and 78 – in the badminton court, which were reportedly stacked with the alleged ill-gotten wealth and assets of Avnash Amarlal Kukreja, who had reportedly been using the lockers without the club authorisation.

Before breaking open the ‘illegally occupied’ lockers, the Institute had informed all the members on three occasions, since February this year, to register the lockers and pay the increased monthly rental of `50 per month, failing which the Institute would break them open, said Mr Srikanth.

“We didn’t know who had occupied the three lockers since the member had not registered them. The staff members informed me about the bags and I told them to bring them to the office. I immediately called the police to check what they contained,” he said.