Friday, February 18, 2011

CBI holds midnight raid on Kalaignar TV office

New Delhi/Chennai: A midnight raid by CBI at the headquarters of Kalaignar TV, owned by Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi’s family, further sharpened the focus on DMK’s links to 2G scam. Sourcessaidthe agency is planning to question Karunanidhi’s daughter, DMK MP Kanimozhi, in what will take CBI literally to the TN chief minister’s doorsteps. 
   Launched in 2007 when Karunanidhi family fell out with Sun TV’s Maran brothers, Kalaignar TV is part owned by Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi, who owns 20% in the channel bouquet and has been aligned with sacked telecom minister ARaja in DMK’s factional equations. Her mother M K Dayalu, Karunanidhi’ssecondwife,holds 60% in channel.
   CBI is probing Rs 206 crore transaction to Kalaignar TV in 2009, arranged by DB Group, which owns Swan Telecom, one of the biggest beneficiaries of scandalous 2G allocation by Raja when he was telecom minister.
   CBI’s focus on Kalaignar TV proves wrong any estimate that the agency would not pursue the DMK angle beyond Raja. The Dravidian outfit has so far acquiesced to the agency’s investigation mainly because of its dependence on Congress.
   However, it will be interesting to watch whether the party maintains its nonchalance if the agency presses on with its interest in Karunanidhi’s family.
   A 12-member CBI team landed up at the Kalaignar TV office, situated at Anna Arivalayam, the DMK headquarters, shortly before midnight avoiding dramatic media coverage from Chennai that could have further embarrassed the government. The raidcontinueduntil 6 am,CBI sources said.
   A top official in the agency said, “All beneficiaries would beinvestigatedby March1,we have already sentsummonsto most of them.” He added that there would be more arrests over the next few days.

I-T dept summons stud farm owner
Mumbai: The Income-Tax (I-T) department will start criminal pro-ceedings for concealment of income against Hasan Ali Khan, the Pune-based owner of race horses, who is wanted for money-laundering deals worth billions of dollars and tax evasion. I-T officials will lodge a complaint for concealment of income in a court in Mumbai and then forward the documents to the Swiss gov-ernment in yet another bid to ask for information about Khan's banking transactions in that country.

No comments:

Post a Comment