Arrested I-T officials took leave to join fake raid on bizman: Cops

The fake raid was conducted on July 17, when the accused visited the Chakala office of Two-M-Opthotronics Private Limited, owned by Rajkumar Kandasami, posing as income tax and police officials

MUMBAI: Two income tax (I-T) officials who were arrested on Thursday in connection with a fake I-T raid at an Andheri-based businessman’s office on July 17 have told the police that they had trained their co-accused a day ahead and taken leave from work to participate in the raid. To verify their claims, the Andheri police have sent a letter to the I-T office in Piramal Chambers, Lalbaug where accused I-T official Sureshkumar Mishra, 57, was posted; and to Kautilya Bhavan in Bandra Kurla Complex where fellow accused Sunil Gore, 59, was posted.

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“We will obtain the attendance register of the two offices and cross-check if the accused had indeed taken leave on July 17,” said a police officer from Andheri police station. “We are also finding out if Mishra, Gore and the other accused had conducted similar raids in the past.”

Both Mishra and Gore were arrested on Thursday, taking the total number of arrests in the case to 10.

As reported by HT earlier, Santosh Khopatkar, 37, one of the accused arrested last week, earlier worked as a driver for the businessman and complainant Rajkumar Kandasami, 49. Fired from his job after an argument, he allegedly used the information he had about Kandasami to hatch a conspiracy and raid the businessman’s office with the help of accomplices.

Apart from Khopatkar, the other accused arrested last week were Vinay More, 37, Prem Sabnani, 50, Pragya Main, 27, Reshma Warang, 41, and Sabina Sheikh, 48.

The fake raid was conducted on July 17, when the accused visited the Chakala office of Two-M-Opthotronics Private Limited, owned by Rajkumar Kandasami, posing as income tax and police officials. One of the accused allegedly produced a search warrant and told Kandasami that he would have to pay ₹1 crore to escape punitive action for purported income tax violations. When the businessman said that he did not have the money and asked for a formal legal notice, the accused threatened to arrest him and told him he would have to pay a larger penalty, said assistant police inspector Ramdas Kadam.

The accused claimed that Kandasami had received ₹1.7 lakh in cash and told him that the penalty for the purported violation was ₹1.44 crore. But Kandasami refused to hand over cash to the accused and instead sought a formal notice from the income tax department, saying he would make the payment directly to the department.

Based on Kandasami’s complaint, the Andheri police registered a case for personation, kidnapping, extortion, criminal conspiracy, house-trespass and criminal intimidation.