Taxmen raid residence of DMK leader Duraimurugan
Chennai: Income tax sleuths Saturday conducted searches at the residence of senior DMK leader Duraimurugan at Katpadi in Vellore district over suspected use of unaccounted money for electioneering.
This comes days after tax raids led to a political storm in neighbouring Karnataka.
The tax officials along with personnel from the election flying squad arrived late last night at the residence of the DMK treasurer and conducted searches early on Saturday morning.
Highly placed sources in the investigation wing of the Income Tax Department told PTI that the raids were carried out. They indicated that the searches were carried out to detect suspected tax evasion vis-a-vis use of unaccounted money for electioneering.
The DMK has fielded Duraimurugan's son, D M Kathir Anand, from the Vellore seat for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Details like if unaccounted money was unearthed were not immediately known.
Duraimurugan alleged that the raids were a "conspiracy" by some political leaders who could not face them in the electoral arena.
"They (tax officials) have gone with the understanding that we have nothing (to hide)," he told reporters. The DMK leader also questioned the timing of the raid.
"This is not the time to hold searches, be it tax or other authorities, when we are in the midst of full-fledged election campaign," he said.
The tax sleuths had carried out pre-dawn raids at 15 to 20 locations in Karnataka, including Bengaluru, Mandya, Mysuru, Hassan, Ramanagar and Shivamogga, on Thursday.
Karnataka Minor Irrigation minister C S Puttaraju and his nephew and close associates of PWD minister H D Revanna were among those whose residences were raided.
Later, Congress and JD(S) leaders led by Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara and former chief minister Siddaramaiah had staged a demonstration in Bengaluru against the raids.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
