Bellary: Around 137 forest officials suspected to have received bribes to allow illegal iron ore mining from an aide of former minister Gali Janardhan Reddy, Karapudi Mahesh, are being investigated by the SIT of the Lokayukta.

However the forest officials have been alleging the police department of having a hand in the crime. They have been contradicting the government’s September 1 order of empowering the Lokayukta to probe mining bribery charges against them.

The Lokayukta report on illegal mining submitted to the state government on July 27, 2011 had claimed that 617 officials had taken bribes from Mr Karapudi Mahesh, who is now behind bars, to allow transportation of 73.99 lakh tonnes of ore extracted illegally in 2009-20011 from 11 different mines and valued at Rs 1849.82 crore.

According to data gathered by the Lokayukta as much as Rs. 2.46 crore was paid to the 617 officials as bribes in 2009-10 by the mining syndicate. It identified 137 of them as forest officials.

But pointing out that the 191 officials mentioned in Mahesh’s pen drive were from the police department, I G Pulli of Samaj Parivartan Samudaya has urged the government to order the Lokayukta to investigate the police officers as well.