Ahead of elections, I-T dept seizes 6.5-kg gold, Rs 4 crore cash

Ahead of the Assembly elections, the Income Tax department has continued the search operation on PWD contractors in the state.

A release from the department stated that Rs 4.01 crore in cash was seized from three contractors in Mysuru, Bengaluru and Davanagere.

The searches were conducted on the premises of three contractors on Thursday. An official said that searches are still going on. Apart from the unaccounted cash, I-T sleuths have also seized 6.5 kg gold jewellery. Of the cash, Rs 1.2 crore was detected in a moving car. I-T sleuths intercepted the car after a hot pursuit and found the cash in the car.

“In addition to the above unaccounted assets, evidences have been recovered showing inflation of purchases, payments to bogus sub contracts, inflated and fraudulent labour payments and unaccounted cash payments,’’ the release said.

In the raids on the contractors between April 24 and 26, I-T officials had seized Rs 6.76 crore till Thursday. The raids were conducted on 11 PWD contractors in Bengaluru and Mysuru.