The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday arrested its Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Kumar in connection with a bribery case involving the agency’s Special Director Rakesh Asthana, PTI reported.

Asthana is accused of accepting a Rs 2-crore bribe in a case linked to businessman Moin Qureshi, who is named in multiple money laundering and corruption cases. Kumar, who was the investigating officer in the Qureshi case, has been accused of forgery in recording the statement of businessman Sathish Sana, a key witness in the case.

Asthana had alleged in August that Sana paid Rs 2 crore to Verma to get relief in the case. The CBI claimed that Kumar fabricated Sana’s statement “as an afterthought...to corroborate the baseless allegations made by Asthana against CBI director Alok Verma” to the Central Vigilance Commissioner, PTI reported.

Earlier this month, the CBI filed a First Information Report in the case, naming its second-in-command Asthana. The complaint also names Samant Kumar Goel, the special director of external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing, but not as an accused. The agency has reportedly submitted telephone intercepts, WhatsApp messages, a money trail and a statement of a suspected middleman.

The CBI conducted searches at Kumar’s home in Delhi on Sunday and recovered eight mobile phones and an IPad, NDTV reported.

Asthana’s appointment to the CBI in October 2017 invited criticism from several quarters. A non-governmental organisation called Common Cause filed a petition in the Supreme Court, calling the appointment illegal and claimed that it violated the principles of “impeccable integrity” and “institutional integrity”.