Representatives from Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV on Monday night sensationally alleged an assault on their crew during the late night IT raids in Delhi. This was after a late-night search operation at an apartment in Delhi’s Geeta Colony led to to a dramatic stand-off between the Income Tax officials and Congress supporters.
As expected, the news sent Goswami into a tizzy as he launched a tirade against the Congress for allegedly trying to stop his staff from reporting on the raids.
The raid had taken place at the house of one Moin Khan, who’s believed to be an office staff of senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel. Patel too arrived at Khan’s house and was seen sitting inside the premise during the IT raids.
Later, a delegation comprising senior Congress leaders Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Kapil Sibal met the Election Commission to register their complaint about about the ‘misuse of IT authorities by the Narendra Modi government before the elections.’
They informed the EC that Khan’s family was not allowed to leave the house for ’24 hours.’ Khan, according to some reports was taken by the IT officials for questioning and was released only when the Congress delegation reached the EC office.
Sunday’s raids at Khan’s house in Geeta Colony was reportedly linked to earlier raids in Madhya Pradesh targeting individuals linked to Chief Minister Kamal Nath. The IT department later issued an extraordinary statement explaining details about the Sunday’s raids.
It said, “Based upon credible information of large scale collection, possession and movement of unaccounted assets, Delhi Directorate of Income Tax (Investigation)
initiated search and seizure action on a group in NCR, Bhopal, Indore and Goa. More than 300 IT officials participated in the operation at about 52 locations in 4 States.”
The statement claimed that ‘searches in Madhya Pradesh have detected a wide spread and well-organized racket of collection of unaccounted cash of about Rs. 281 cr through various
persons in different walks of life including business, politics and public service.’ It said, “A part of the cash was also transferred to the headquarter of a major political party in Delhi including about Rs 20 cr which was moved through hawala recently to the headquarter of the political party from the residence of a senior functionary at Tughlak Road, New Delhi.”
The IT department also claimed that it had recovered ‘unaccounted cash of Rs 14.6 cr,’ besides 252 bottles of Liquor, few arms and hide skins of tigers.
“The searches in Delhi in the group of a close relative of the senior functionary have further led to seizure of incriminating evidence including cash book recording unaccounted transactions of Rs 230cr, siphoning off money through bogus billing of more than Rs. 242 cr and evidence of more than 80 companies in Tax havens. Several unaccounted/Benami properties at posh locations in Delhi have also been detected,” the statement read.