Income tax officials carried out simultaneous raids on the premises of a prominent sweetmeat shop and a well-known pan masala brand in Lucknow and Kanpur on Thursday. The raids started in the morning and continued till the time of going to the press.

In Lucknow, as many as 35 income tax officers were involved in the exercise, outcome of which wasn’t disclosed by the IT officers.

Raids were carried out on at least 28 premises of the sweetmeat shop owners and the pan masala brand in Lucknow’s Sapru Marg, Subhash Marg and Chowk premises. Premises of directors of other companies connected to them or known to their owners were also raided.

I-T officials admitted that they suspected the businessmen had unaccounted cash totalling crores as the owners were also engaged in real estate business.

Diaries in which cash transactions have been allegedly written were seized, an official said.

IT officials who were involved in search and seizure operations claimed recovery of Rs 50 lakh cash and jewellery worth Rs 1 crore from the sweet-meat shop owner in Lucknow.

However, they said, a final assessment of actual seizure would take a while.

“There are various papers and books that we have seized and they are being compared with the tax submissions by the traders,” an I-T official said.

An IT official, who wasn’t involved in the exercise, said usually such raids are carried out on specific tip-offs about tax evasion.

The staff at the sweetmeat shop in Sadar area here said they weren’t aware of the reasons for the raid or its outcome.

Income tax officers also raided the pan masala brand’s premises in Kanpur. The IT teams from Lucknow, having about 100 officials, raided four places in Kanpur.

The offices raided were of the distributors and suppliers to the pan masala group, said sources. Joint commissioner Saurabh Anand was leading the raids, which were carried out with jawans of Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) providing security.

The local police were not involved in the process in Kanpur, said the sources. All the offices were in the Nayagunj bazar where the teams were going through the records till late Thursday evening.

“The raids began around 12 pm and the search and examination of records is likely to continue through the night; no one is being allowed to go in or outside,” the sources said.

Meanwhile, another team from Lucknow raided a slaugter house in Unnao and seized some incriminating documents

First Published: Jan 04, 2019 08:12 IST