Houses of Health Minister, Sarathkumar also searched

The Income Tax department seized more than Rs. 5.5 crore from two persons, considered close to Tamil Nadu Health Minister C. Vijayabaskar, during a raid on Friday across the State.
The I-T sleuths also searched the houses and offices belonging to Mr. Vijayabaskar, actor-turned-politician and Samuthuva Makkal Katchi leader Sarathkumar and S. Geethalakshmi, Dr. MGR Medical University Vice- Chancellor.

Many officials deployed
The raids began early morning at more than 30 places and, by 11.30 a.m., the taxmen found some evidence which pointed to more locations.

“The raids were then extended to more than 50 locations,” said an I-T official. More than 100 officials were deployed for this operation. A search at the MLA’s Hostel and a city lodge opened a Pandora’s box.

“We found several incriminating documents at both these places,” an official said.

At the Minister’s premises, some papers were recovered. The papers had signatures of people (confidants) who received money. Simultaneously, searches were conducted at the homes of relatives and associates of Mr. Vijaybaskar. “We recovered Rs. 3.5 crore from Nainar Mohammed (a confidant of the Minister) and Kalpesh (Rs. 1.1 crore). Another crore was seized from a confidante of the Minister,” the taxmen said.

The Minister’s accountant Srinivasan had some papers in his possession, which showed that Rs. 89 crore was distributed at R.K Nagar.