Three I-T officials, Sub-Inspector held for robbing collection agent of Rs 15 lakh in Chennai

Chennai: Three officials from the Income Tax Department and a special sub-inspector (SSI) of police were arrested allegedly for robbing a collection agent of Rs 15 lakh at knife-point, city police said on Thursday.

The arrested have been identified as I-T inspector Damadoran, I-T officer Pradeep, and superintendent Prabhu, and SSI Raja Singh attached to the law and order wing of the Triplicane police station here, Triplicane police said.

All four have been remanded to judicial custody.

On December 17, the SSI stopped Mohammed Ghouse of Old Washermenpet, here, working as a collection agent for a businessman in Vellore, near the Tamil Nadu Government Super Specialty Hospital at Omandurar, here, and found several bundles of cash in his possession.

Singh asked for documents to verify the cash in his possession and later told Ghouse that he would be reporting him to the I-T department, police said.

The SSI left the scene immediately after three persons arrived in a car and identified themselves as I-T officials.

Instead of taking him to the Income Tax department office, the trio took him to a spot near the Government Children’s Hospital, Egmore, and extracted Rs 15 lakh from Ghouse at knife-point, police said.

Police claimed Ghouse was carrying Rs 20 lakh in cash to buy a CT scan machine for Zunaith Ahamed, proprietor of Life Line CT Scan at Vaniyambadi in Tirupathur district.

The incident came to light after Ghouse lodged a complaint with the Triplicane police and after scanning the CCTV footage, the police arrested the four.