Bhopal: The Income Tax (IT) raids that commenced during wee hours on Sunday on the establishments of those associated with Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s OSD continued till Monday night. The IT officers on Monday reached the garage of Ashwin Sharma, close aide of CM Kamal Nath who lives in Platinum Plaza and started valuation of his posh cars. Sharma who also has his office in the building said be in possession of costly guns as well.
Recovery of huge amounts of cash was speculated from his residence as close to half a dozen currency counting machines had landed in the building late night on Sunday. The CRPF which is accompanying the IT officers had deployed additional company of its force at the building after the face off with the MP police. It was claimed that IT sleuths would be verifying bank accounts and lockers of Sharma on Monday.
Meanwhile, the office of Chief Electoral Officer of MP has also claimed that they were kept in the dark about the raids and the IT MP & CG office informed them about the IT action at 8am while the raids had started as early as 3am on Sunday.
Unverified sources have claimed that the cash recovered from the establishments of CM Kamal Nath’s close aides could be over Rs 100 crore. The IT officers also have raided the places belonging to Nath close aide RK Miglani and nephew Ratul Puri. The state Rajbhawan reportedly has sought a report from state government on the face-off between the CRPF and MP police officers on Sunday evening during the raids.
Meanwhile, the IT officers continued to quiz Pravin Kakkar, the OSD of Kamal Nath last night and took his son Salil outside of their raided house in Indore on Monday morning suggesting that they were carrying out searches at other locations of Kakkar.