Health inspector flushes Rs 10,000 down toilet; pipe search ends in cash recovery and arrest

MALAPPURAM: A Public Health Inspector of Tirurangadi Municipality was arrested by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau for allegedly demanding a Rs 10,000 bribe to issue municipal licences for a newly opened hotel and juice stall. The accused, Sreeji S, a native of Kattakkada in Thiruvananthapuram, was caught in a Vigilance trap at his rented residence in Parappanangadi. The complainant had approached Sreeji through a friend after her online applications for licences for the hotel and juice stall on the Chemmad–Kodinhi Road were returned on the grounds that the “papers were not clear”. Sreeji allegedly demanded Rs 10,000 to facilitate the licences.

The complainant subsequently informed the Deputy Superintendent of Police of the Malappuram Vigilance Unit, following which a trap was laid and the accused was kept under surveillance. As instructed by the Vigilance team, the complainant handed over Rs 10,000 to Sreeji at his rented room in a multi-storey building. After she left the room and reached the ground floor, the Vigilance officers arrived and knocked on the door. Sensing their presence, Sreeji allegedly put the bribe money into the toilet and flushed it.

When repeatedly questioned about the money, Sreeji reportedly gave contradictory answers, following which the Vigilance team searched his room and the overgrown area behind the building for hours. During detailed questioning, he eventually admitted that he had flushed the money down the toilet. In his presence, the toilet was dismantled and the pipe was examined by pumping water through it at high pressure. The Vigilance team then recovered the bribe money, which had remained lodged in bends in the pipe, providing crucial evidence in the trap operation. Sreeji was subsequently arrested and produced before the Vigilance Court in Kozhikode, which remanded him to custody.