Income Tax officials on Friday, June 23, 2023, resumed searches in Karur at the residences of persons acquainted with Minister V. Senthilbalaji, who is under the custody of Enforcement Directorate, after being arrested in a money laundering case, on June 14, 2023.
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The officials, who arrived in five vehicles with the protection of Central Reserve Police Force personnel, removed the seals on some rooms of the houses of Karthik and Ramesh, partners in Sakthi Mess, a restaurant in Karur, in an apartment at Kothai Nagar on Karur-Erode Road, and resumed the searches. Both men are believed to be the acquaintances of Mr. Senthilbalaji and his brother Ashok Kumar.
The operation commenced around 9 a.m. No outsiders were allowed to enter the premises or to go out. The officials wrapped up the searches in the houses of Karthik and Ramesh in the afternoon. The officials, thereafter, arrived at the house of Shankar Anand, a government contractor, at Gandhipuram and an office of a civil engineer at Kamarajpuram and resumed the search. Similarly, the officials were said to have searched the office of an auditor at Sengunthapuram.
The premises are among the houses searched by the income tax officials during an eight-day operation that commenced on May 26. Some of the houses and commercial properties were, at that point, sealed reportedly because of the non-cooperation of the residents during the operation.
Subsequently, the Enforcement Directorate, on June 13, searched Mr. Senthilbalaji’s official chamber at the Secretariat and his bungalow in Chennai and other places linked to him in Karur and Coimbatore. Thereafter, he was arrested. Later he was hospitalised.
