BHOPAL: After poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, now tax raids in adjoining Madhya Pradesh have thrown up a plethora of unaccounted cash, which was stashed among other places inside an underground water tank.
Income Tax department searches at more than ten premises owned by the politically influential Rai family in Damoh district of MP, which started at 5 am on Thursday and ended at around 11.30 pm on Friday, has thrown up enormous unaccounted cash totaling over Rs 8 crores.
Out of the unaccounted cash which has been recovered from the raided premises around Rs 1 crore was stashed in a bag and put inside an underground water tank.
The IT department sleuths had to use a hair dryer and clothes iron to dry the wet Rs 500 currency notes recovered from the underground water tank, before counting them with multiple currency note counting machines. Videos of the bag containing cash and wet currency notes being dried with clothes iron-hair dryer have gone viral.
The IT department teams led by joint director Munmun Sharma also seized gold jewellery valued at several crore rupees, sources privy to the around 42 hours long search confided to The New Indian Express.
The Rai family comprises four brothers, Shankar Rai, Kamal Rai, Raju Rai and Sanjay Rai. The family has stakes in multiple businesses, including liquor trade, hotels and transport. While Shankar Rai was the former chairman of Damoh Nagar Palika with Congress support, brother Kamal Rai was the ex-chairman of the same municipality with BJP support.
Shankar Rai's son is a local Congress leader.
In January 2019, Jawahar Jaiswal, a former Samajwadi Party MP from Chandauli seat of East Uttar Pradesh, was arrested by UP STF from the premises of Sanjay Rai. The former SP MP (a close relative of Sanjay Rai) had a bounty of Rs 25,000 on head in a murder case. Jaiswal is a big liquor baron and hotelier from Varanasi, who has been with the BJP also in the past.
Most relatives and contacts of the Rai family are based in neighbouring poll bound UP.
The searches have also led the IT department sleuths to incriminating documents which suggest major benami transactions, including operation of licensed liquor vend in the name of employees, one of whom was serving as conductor of buses of the Rai family, sources added.
With the IT department sniffing massive tax evasion and major benami investments in MP and other states, Rs 10,000 award has been declared for anyone giving clinching information about more properties of the Rai family.