Patna, June 1 (IANS): A Bihar official used to cook his food in a silver pressure cooker, leaving a Bihar Police raiding team bewildered.

The Economic Offences Unit (EOU) team of the Bihar Police was flummoxed when it recovered during raids on the government engineer a silver pressure cooker. The vessel was later produced in court, an official said here Saturday. 

"It surprised us all that a silver pressure cooker was recovered. It was brought to the court as evidence," a team official told IANS.

Two days ago, a team of the EOU raided the house of Awadhesh Kumar Mandal, executive engineer of the building construction department of Muzaffarpur, about 75 km from the state capital.

The EOU team discovered properties worth crores of rupees.

"He was merely an engineer, but he lived like a king. Not only was his pressure cooker a silver one, he also had three silver spittoons," another official said.

Among other things discovered in Mandal's possession were 1.5 kg gold, 13 kg silver and 15 diamond ornaments. Mandal owned two flats and a shop in Patna, officials said.

"We detected 25 bank accounts and investment documents worth crores of rupees," the official said.

The team last Thursday raided residences and offices of three state government officials, including Mandal, and detected assets worth nearly Rs.50 crore, which is highly disproportionate to the known sources of income of the three employees.