The Rajasthan Police have initiated a probe into the theft of eight Iranian carpets from the Khasa Kothi hotel in Jaipur, reportedly worth crores, following a complaint from the Public Works Department, which has named Dhirenra Kamthan, former chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s officer on special duty, as an accused.

The police complaint states that the former OSD and another PWD executive engineer picked up the carpets from the hotel and were to deliver it to the office of the chief minister, but these are yet to be found.

Ashok Nagar SHO Man Singh on Saturday said PWD executive engineer Satender Singh had lodged the complaint on Friday. “Singh has charged Kamthan and another PWD executive engineer, Rakesh Bharghav, with criminal breach of trust by a public servant under Section 409 of the Indian Penal Code and has alleged that the duo were responsible for the carpets,” Man Singh said, adding that the eight carpets were taken out from the Khasa Kothi hotel in March 2006, but had not been found in any government department so far.

Senior PWD officials said that in 2006, they were to collect and transfer eight Iranian carpets from the Khasa Kothi hotel to the Chief Minister Office. Kamthan and Bharghav reportedly showed in the records that the carpets were taken out from the hotel, but these never reached their intended destination. A PWD official stated that the carpets were worth around Rs 16 crore.

The PWD on Friday suspended Bharghav following the FIR. PWD secretary P K Saxena said that the department had initiated an internal probe into the matter in August. “The FIR was registered after we checked our records and did not find the carpets,” Saxena said.