I-T searches premises of Tamil Nadu real estate firm accused of links with DMK’s ‘first family’

CHENNAI: The Income Tax department on Monday conducted searches on the premises of well-known Tamil Nadu-based real estate firm G Square, official sources said.
Searches were held in various locations in the state including Chennai, Coimbatore and Tiruchirappalli, the sources added.
The city-based firm said it had been “subjected to unwarranted persecution” for the past few months and sought to “emphatically” state that there was no truth in the allegations.
Amid reports that DMK MLA from the city M K Mohan was also being raided by the tax officials, his supporters staged a protest against the agency’s action.
Some persons, including BJP state unit chief K Annamalai, have alleged that company had links to the DMK’s ‘first family’, which G Square has categorically denied. It was “neither owned nor controlled” by the DMK’s ‘first family’, it said in response to Annamalai’s charges.
Searches were reportedly held in the Karnataka and Telangana offices of the real estate firm too.
In a statement, G Square said “over the past few months, our organisation has been subjected to unwarranted persecution from multiple fronts through unfounded allegations, with no evidence to back them up.”
“Even though it has been an incredibly challenging time for us, we are grateful that measures are now being taken to validate the legitimacy of these claims. We want to take this opportunity to emphatically state that there is no truth to these allegations,” the company said.
It said that as an organisation it believed in transparency. “We assure everyone that we have nothing to hide and nothing to fear. We are fully cooperating with the authorities ,” it added. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu housing and urban development minister S Muthusamy said no special concessions had been extended to G Square.
“G Square is a private firm, which was started in 2013, and the DMK government is not giving any special concessions to the firm. No favouritism is shown to the company by the department of Housing and Urban Development,” he said at Erode in response to a query.