I-T intensifies raids on Odisha distillery group

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

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 December 9 intensified its crackdown on a liquor distillery group in Odisha.

After recovering around ₹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 ₹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.