Bihar govt denies reports of being tipped off on Lalu raids

Patna: The Bihar government on Saturday rejected news reports that senior civil and police officials were tipped off about yesterday's CBI raids at locations linked to RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his family.

"Its a totally baseless news," an official release said.

Quoting sources, some reports today said Chief Secretary Anjani Kumar Singh and state police chief P K Thakur were alerted by CBI on Thursday night about the impending raids at the premises of Lalu Prasad and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav among others.

Some reports from New Delhi even claimed the Prime Minister's Office had informed Chief Minister Nitish Kumar prior to the raids apprehending trouble and seeking adequate security measures to be put in place.

"Information regarding raids was given by CBI to director general of police at around 7:30 AM, some time after the raids began following which the police made necessary security arrangements in view of law and order," the official statement said.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is away in Rajgir in his home district Nalanda since Thursday afternoon reportedly due to health issues.

Kumar and his party JD(U) have remained tight-lipped about the raids, while the Congress, another RJD ally, has backed Lalu's claim that those were part of "vendetta politics" by BJP and the Modi government.

Additional security personnel were deployed at offices of BJP, RJD and JD(U) in the state capital while raids were on yesterday.

Additional Director General of Police (Headquarters) S K Singhal had said a general alert was sounded across the state in view of the political ramification of the raids.