A team of the anti-corruption bureau from Ranchi carried out a search operation at the house of a mining inspector, Niranjan Prasad, at Tuiladungri under Golmuri police station limits on Thursday.

Prasad was arrested by CBI at Namkum in Ranchi on May 3 this year for allegedly carrying Rs 50 lakh cash in his car during the Lok Sabha elections and is lodged in Birsa Munda Central Jail.

Officials from the anti-corruption bureau’s (ACB’s) local office at Sonari assisted the team from Ranchi in the search operation, which lasted for four hours from 10am.

“The main objective of the search operation at the tainted mining inspector's house was to find out the source of Rs 50 lakh that had been seized from his possession in May this year,” deputy superintendent of police (ACB) Jitendra Dubey said. “The team that had come from Ranchi was being led by DSP (ACB) Meera Prabha Toppo.”

He said the CBI had registered a case in connection with the seizure of the money prior to the Lok Sabha elections and had subsequently transferred the case to the ACB.

DSP Dubey said that during the search operation they recovered Rs 40,000 from the house, bank passbooks and papers related to a term deposit. He said there must be about Rs 5 lakh balance in the name of Prasad in the passbook and the deposit that they would scrutinise later on.