Two I-T officials arrested over fake I-T raid at bizman’s office

The two officials – income tax inspector Suresh Mahavir Prasad Mishra, 57, and assistant Sunil Manohar Gore, 59 – were arrested based on the interrogation of six other accused who were arrested on Saturday, police said

MUMBAI: The Andheri police on Thursday arrested two Income Tax department officials in connection with the fake income tax raid at a businessman’s office in July and demands for a ransom of ₹1 crore from the businessman.

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The two officials – income tax inspector Suresh Mahavir Prasad Mishra, 57, and assistant Sunil Manohar Gore, 59 – were arrested based on the interrogation of six other accused who were arrested on Saturday, police officers familiar with the matter told Hindustan Times.

“During interrogation, the arrested accused claimed that two income tax officials had helped them conduct the fake raid spanning nearly four hours. We have arrested both the officials and are investigating their exact role in the conspiracy, including if they tipped off, trained or advised the other accused,” a police officer said, requesting anonymity.

Alongside the income tax officials, the police arrested two other accused on Thursday – Jitu alias Jitendra Namdev More, 52, and Ashok Vithoba Shinde, 57.

As reported by HT earlier, Santosh Khopatkar, 37, one of the accused arrested on Saturday, 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 on Saturday 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.

After around four hours, the fake income tax officials left the premises, allegedly after obtaining Kandasami’s signature on a blank paper. The businessman was initially reluctant to approach the police, but later consulted his chartered accountant, who checked with the Income Tax department and confirmed that no such raid had been authorised.

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