I-T dept raids Congress MLA Dalal’s houses

FARIDABAD: Income tax sleuths conducted searches at the houses of Palwal MLA Karan Singh Dalal, who is a close relative of former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, in the wee hours of Thursday.

Sources said sleuths from investigation wing of income tax department, Faridabad, accompanied by a huge contingent of Haryana police force conducted at Dalal’s residence in New Colony, Palwal, and his ancestral village Kithwari in the same district.

The searches were also conducted at the residences of his brothers—Jaidev and Prem Singh Dalal in Palwal.

Sources said searches were also conducted at the hotel of his brother in Palwal, and his close aides Subhash Chaudhary, director of SRC, a real estate firm.

Though rumors were flying thick and fast that income tax conducted the raids jointly with the enforcement directorate, but the income tax deputy director (investigation) Gaurav Baharill confirmed that only IT was conducting the searches in Palwal.

“The raids were conducted at 21 places belonging to me, my sons, brothers and relatives in different places of Faridabad, Palwal and Delhi,” Karan Singh Dalal told HT over the phone.

“The IT sleuths recovered ₹78,000 cash and one and a half kilo silver and gold. No other incriminating document was recovered,” he said.

Dalal also lashed at the state government, especially chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and other BJP leaders of Faridabad, for doing this “mischief”.

“By raiding my residences, the BJP leaders have only strengthened my voice, which I have been raising against this government for its failure on all fronts including on the Ram Rahim front and Gurugram school incident,” Dalal said.

It may be mentioned that the Congress MLA Dalal had last month alleged at a press conference that human trafficking of over 700 girls from Faridabad and Palwal districts had taken place in the last three years.

The charge was denied by the Faridabad police commissioner Hanif Qureshi.