CHENNAI: After its large-scale search operation against Minister EV Velu last week failed to result in any substantial seizure, the Income Tax Department has zeroed in on a senior official for allegedly leaking the information about the raids beforehand.
According to highly placed sources within the department, an official in the rank of Additional Commissioner was the source of the leak, which thwarted their multi-location operation.
“So far, there has not been any major seizure as expected; the raid was a total flop,” said sources.
The department had planned a massive operation involving teams from Delhi and Mumbai to conduct simultaneous, surprise raids at 30 locations across Tamil Nadu, including 11 in Chennai, all linked to the senior DMK leader who holds the PWD and Highways portfolio in the State Cabinet.
Stung by the failure, an internal probe was initiated, said sources. The mobile phone location and activities of the official under suspicion indicated that he was in touch with targetted parties, sources alleged.
“It looks like the parties on our radar shifted money and documents to safe locations [before the raid parties reached there], and the operation turned out to be a failure,” sources told DT Next.
Velu was the third Cabinet member in the state to face the heat from central agencies.
Meanwhile, DMK president and Chief Minister MK Stalin alleged that the Centre-ruling BJP was trying to intimidate opposition parties using I-T raids. The Saffron party was “daydreaming about intimidating the party” through I-T raids, but the DMK was not one to be afraid of such tricks, he said.