IT raids on 60 premises of two businessmen belonging to BJP

Bhopal, June 21, 2012 (HMNS): The Income Tax Department on Wednesday conducted simultaneous raids at 60 premises of two businessmen. One of them is associated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh. The two businessmen whose premises were raided are- Dilip Suryavanshi of Dilip Bildcon and chairman of VNS group of Colleges Sudhir Sharma. Both of them are learnt to have close relations with BJP leaders and known as influential in different sectors of the State Government.

Dilip Bildcon owns almost all the contracts regarding construction work going on under BRTS project in the State.

A total of Rs 5 crore in cash was recovered from the premises of both the businessmen including Rs 3 crore from Sushir Sharma and Rs 2 crore from Dulip Suryavanshi.

From both the premises, the IT sleuths recovered diamond ornaments worth Rs 50 lakh, gold ornaments worth Rs 1 crore and silver ornaments worth Rs 52 lakh. Besides, the officials found 15 lockers in different banks and three dozen banks accounts. A haul of tax evading documents have been seized.

IT official sources informed that Sudhir Sharma, who earlier worked with the Rajiv Gandhi Technological University, now owns property worth Rs 1,000 crore. His assets were highly disproportionate to the known sources of income, officials said, adding that hardly six years ago, he had an income of Rs 13 crore. He has a mining company and several houses in the State capital.

The residence and office of Sharma is in Akriti Gardens. In another house owned by Sharma, the IT officials had set up a control room where the ornaments were assessed and currency notes were counted.

The searches of Income Tax officials commenced early in the morning at several places including Bhopal, Indore, Jhabua, Jabalpur, Nagpur, Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Roorkee and Rajgarh. There are 32 premises alone in Bhopal, where raids continued till late night.

As many as 300 officials of the Income Tax Department along with 250 police personnel were pressed into the job. Sources said, the house of Bharat Singh, who is husband of a woman BJP leader was also raided in Bhopal.