VELLORE: A team of Income Tax (I-T) officers on Saturday swooped down on the residence of a DMK member’s brother at Puduvasoor in Vellore district and seized Rs 27.34 lakh unaccounted cash, sources said.
The Model Code of Conduct had come into effect in the Vellore constituency ahead of the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for August 5.
The sources said that a team of 10 I-T sleuths, assisted by a poll squad, reached the residence of one Ezhumalai, brother of DMK member Vasoor Natarajan, at Bajanaicoil Street in Puduvasoor around noon and began the search.
Ezhumalai was involved in real estate business for the last many years. “The tax men found Rs 27.34 lakh cash in the house and Ezhumalai claimed that the money was earned through his business deals, but he failed to produce any documents to validate the claim,” the sources added.
It may be noted that the I-T men had conducted similar raids at the residence of DMK treasurer Durai Murugan, whose son DM Kathir Anand was the party’s candidate for Vellore Lok Sabha polls which was earlier scheduled for April 18. They seized unaccounted cash from Durai Murugan’s house and later seized Rs 11.48 crore from the house of one Damodaran, a relative of local DMK functionary Poonjolai Seenivasan at Katpadi. Subsequently, the Election Commission of India rescinded the polls stating the circumstances for conducting polls were vitiated.
Mango trader in trouble
Meanwhile, a flying squad seized Rs 1.16 lakh cash from a mango trader as he could not produce documents validating the source of the amount, near the Green Circle in Vellore. Assistant Agriculture Officer Guhan and police personnel were manning the roads on Saturday morning when they intercepted a local mango trader Ameer Abbas’s (30) car. Upon finding that Ameer was carrying cash, the Flying Squad team demanded relevant documents, which the trader failed to produce. So, the team seized the cash and shifted it to the treasury.
Out of box approach
P Chellapandian, State President, Tamil Nadu Alcohol Consumers Awareness Association has opted to file his nomination with an out of the box approach. He will collect used alcohol bottles and sell them to fetch money to pay nomination fee of Rs 25,000