The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) virtually imploded under the impact of a spat between its Director Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana which escalated and led to the arrest of an official from the top investigating agency on Monday.

“The CBI has arrested Devender Kumar, DSP, CBI on the allegations of falsification of records in an ongoing investigation…He was earlier investigating officer in the Moin Qureshi case,” a CBI official said.

Meat exporter Qureshi is being investigated in multiple cases pertaining to extortion and money laundering. “The CBI also searched Kumar’s office within the CBI headquarters and seized eight mobile phones,” the official added.

Kumar is accused of fabricating the statement of Sathish Sena, witness in the Moin Qureshi case, to implicate sitting CBI Director Alok Verma. “It was found that Devender Kumar had fabricated this statement as an afterthought plan to corroborate the baseless allegations made by Special Director, Rakesh Asthana, against Director CBI, Alok Kumar Verma, to CVC. Looking at the seriousness of the matter, role of other officers of SIT, CBI, then supervising the Moin Qureshi case, are also being probed.”

Rakesh Asthana, Special Director, CBI, New Delhi; Devender Kumar, DSP, CBI, SIT, New Delhi; Manoj Prasad, Somesh Prasad have been named in the First Information Report filed by the CBI in this case. They have been booked under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The CBI is also probing the meeting of middleman Manoj Prasad with Chetan Sandesara in London. Chetan Sandesara is promoter of Sterling Biotech.

Meanwhile, in the corridors of power, there was an unnerving calm with no comments coming from any quarters. There were lot of murmurs — like the political leanings of those in news — but no official word.

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