ED may declare Kanchi don Sridhar as proclaimed offender

The efforts of the Kancheepuram police have also not borne any fruit as Sridhar continues to evade the authorities. A red corner alert is already slapped against Sridhar, and the same has been passed on to the immigration authorities of countries he may travel to, but Sridhar is said to have shifted his base from Dubai to Sri Lanka, when the Interpol red alert was on. 

Once the Enforcement Directorate declares Sridhar Dhanapal as a proclaimed offender under the PMLA, the courts could confiscate the properties of Sridhar Dhanapal, which were attached by the ED, even before disposal of these cases. Enforcement Directorate has already attached several properties of Sridhar Dhanapal, which have a guideline value of over Rs.105 crore. 

ED sources said, once the declaration is made, they could move the court to get his properties confiscated. These properties could then be auctioned and the proceeds paid to the government treasury. 

“We will have to declare him a proclaimed offender as he had not responded to our summons,” KSSV Prasad, joint director of ED, told DT Next. He said ED has already attached all the properties of Sridhar Dhanapal, which could be identified by the agency. 

“The state police had given out a list of his properties and we have attached all of them. We had a few more properties but neither Sridhar, his family or relatives were connected to them. His son does not have any properties,” Prasad said. When ED is tightening its noose around Sridhar Dhanapal, the Kancheepuram police continued to interrogate his son, Santhosh Sridhar. 

Sources said the family members are guarding the whereabouts of Sridhar as a secret and are not divulging any details. Police sources said Sridhar’s wife, during initial days of interrogation, had told the investigators that he was in Dubai. 

However, later she retracted that statement and told police that she has no information about his whereabouts. Meanwhile, sources hinted that the Kancheepuram police have extracted information regarding his present hideout during interrogation of his son. 

Kancheepuram SP, Santhosh Hadimani, had told DTNext that efforts are on to arrest Sridhar and prosecute him. Sridhar is involved in several cases of murder, extortion, kidnap and attempts to murder. His brothers and associates had been arrested by the Kancheepuram police.