I-T intensifies raids on Odisha distillery group

Bhubaneswar: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured people that 'money looted from the public will be returned', the Income Tax (I-T) Department on Saturday intensified its crackdown on a liquor distillery group in Odisha.

After recovering around Rs 225 crore till Friday, the I-T sleuths seized another 20 bagloads of cash from the house of a countrymade liquor manufacturer in Sudapara area of Bolangir district on Saturday.

The amount of money recovered from Sudapara is being counted, an official said, adding it is expected to be over Rs 50 crore.

I-T sleuths had on Friday taken 156 cash-loaded bags to the SBI main branch at Bolangir for counting.

I-T DG Sanjay Bahadur, who has been camping in Bhubaneswar for the last three days, however, refused to divulge details on the ongoing raids.

"Our people are working on it," he told reporters on Saturday.

Sources said that while 150 officials were taking part in raids on the liquor distillery group, the I-T department has also engaged another 20 officials from Hyderabad for verification of digital documents recovered from different places during the raids.

The seized money was being counted at two SBI branches at Sambalpur and Bolangir, sources said, adding that counting of the cash, mostly in Rs 500 denomination notes, has become a herculean task and machines have developed glitches due to the heavy load.

Note-counting machines have also been brought from various banks to streamline the process, they said.

After conducting raids on manufacturing units and premises of stakeholders associated with Baldeo Sahu and Group of Companies, one of the biggest countrymade liquor manufacturers in western Odisha, the agency is now targeting offices and residences of all the persons linked to this group, sources said.

The I-T raids started from Boudh Distillery Private Limited (BDPL), a subsidiary of Baldeo Sahu Infra Private Limited, they said, adding that a group was allegedly linked to a Congress MP from Jharkhand.

The raids were conducted in Sambalpur, Rourkela, Bolangir, Sundargarh and Bhubaneswar.

Modi, while sharing a news report on the raids, said in a post on X: "Countrymen should look at these piles of currency notes and then hear the speeches of its (Congress) leaders on honesty. Every penny looted from people will have to be returned. This is Modi's guarantee."