A day after joining the Bhartiya Janata Party, discarded former Family Welfare minister in Mayawati government, Babu Singh Kushwaha was targeted by the CBI as numerous teams simultaneously raided offices and residences of Kushwaha, his close associates and some businessmen involved in the multi-crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) rip -off. The CBI took over the probe into the scam, which has already accounted for the killing of two CMOs and a Deputy CMO.

Ironically, the CBI chose to spare another BSP minister with NRHM taint Antoo Mishra, who was also removed alongwith Babu Singh Kushwaha after the scam surfaced. Both Mishra and Kushwaha was grilled by the CBI in New Delhi last week. The CBI teams raided 61 establishments including residences of Kushwaha, his close aide and BSP MLC Ram Chander Pradhan, two former DG of Medical Hhealth and Family welfare, Dr SP Ram and Dr RR Bharti, General Manager UP Jal Nigam PK Jain and UPSIDC, chief Abhay Kumar Vajpayee on Wednesday.

In Lucknow, CBI sleuths raided Kushwaha's residence (A-102, Shalimar Royale at Mall Avenue), his office at Kasmanda House in Hazratganj, the Gomatinagar residences of MLC Ram Chander Pradhan, Dr SP Ram and Dr RR Bharti respectively. Besides, residence and other establishments of GM, Jal Nigam PK Jain were also raided and searched. Another house of Kushwaha was also raided and searched at Gwalior.

The CBI team members also raided the premises of private companies engaged in NRHM. These include eight premises in Kanpur, four in Moradabad, Agra, Gauriganj in Amethi, Moradabad, Ghaziabad, New Delhi and  Sonipat in Haryana.

In Moradabad, Kushwaha's businessman friend Saurabh Jain his associate Narendra Kumar Jain were targeted by CBI. The team also raided Saurabh's establishment in New Delhi. Jain's firm was earlier raided by officials of Food & Drug Administration (FDA) of the UP government. The search operation were continuing in many places till the time of filing the report.

The CBI teams are said to have recovered documentary evidences regarding the scam in huge quantity besides 3 Kg of gold and Rs 1.10 crore in cash from Jain's locker and reportedly arrested both Dr Ram and Dr Bharti.

While Confirming the raids by sleuths in connection with the NRHM scam, Joint Director of CBI in Lucknow, Zaveed Ahmed refused to give any detail but said that both Dr Ram and Dr Bharti were in their custody and were being quizzed at their Special Crime Branch Unit in Sahkarita Bhawan.

The CBI has registered five separate cases (three in Lucknow and two in Delhi) in connection with upgradation of 134 hospitals, purchases of computers, ambulances etc on Tuesday.

Besides Babu Singh Kushwaha, GM of Jal Nigam, PK Jain, who was then posted at GM of Construction & Design section, Project manager BN Srivastava, Resident Engineer Kartar Singh, Junior engineers – BN Gupta, JK Singh, along with Girish Malik (representative of PK Jain's company-Surgeon Medi Equip Private Ltd), Ramesh Bhatia of Ankur Goods and Parcel and owner of Modern Enterprises also figure as the accused.