The Income Tax Department has come out with facts relating to the raids conducted by it late last week at ‘Veda Nilayam’, the famed Poes Garden residence in Chennai of the deceased former chief-minister J. Jayalalithaa.

On Friday (17th November) night, income-tax officials entered the Poes Garden premises and conducted raids well past midnight. News leaked in no time and very soon, the narrow Poes Garden was abuzz with the presence of lensmen and newsmen waiting to gather news about the income-tax personnel’s entry into the premises, which was the ‘power-centre’ of the State for close to three decades.

Raids continued despite AIADMK cadres congregating outside the residence and raising slogans against the raids. At a time when speculations are being made about the raids, the I-T Department has come out with its explanation of what happened on Friday night.  “We searched thoroughly the four rooms occupied by Sasikala and the room where Jayalalilthaa’s secretary Poonkundran used to stay,” they said.

“We didn’t raid Jayalalithaa’s room and got the keys to all the five rooms from Rajarajan, a relative of Ilavarasi. We recovered many laptops and pen-drives and are looking into their contents. It is apparent that Sasikala’s family was running more than 80 fake companies to evade payment of (income) tax.  Raids were conducted based only on concrete information.

“15 bank accounts belonging to Sasikala’s family members have now been attached. We didn’t seek the assistance of Central forces as the State police provided security to us. If the need arises, we might even go to Bangalore to interrogate Sasikala and Ilavarasi at the Parappana Agrahara Prison,” they said.