Gujarat BJP corporator kin held with old Rs 31 lakh notes; Rs 74.4 lakh seized

Gujarat police have arrested brother of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) municipal councilor with scrapped currency notes totaling Rs 31 lakh, as part of as much as Rs 74.4 lakh in old and new notes seized from four places since Tuesday.

The Crime branch sleuths of Vadodara police on Tuesday raided a car near the house of Vaikunt Pawar, the brother of local municipal corporator Vijay Pawar in Vaghodia road locality, and recovered Rs 31 lakh in notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination stashed in a bag kept on the back seat.

Police said they suspected that he had kept the large sum of scrapped note for illegal exchange. Pawar is being interrogated, crime branch officials said.

In Ahmedabad, Rs 12.44 lakh in cash, including Rs 10.60 lakh in new Rs 2,000 notes, was seized in the Satellite area from a car during a search operation on Wednesday.

Three persons - Virbhadra Jadeja, Pravin Mali and Yajvendra Parmar - were detained. A gold biscuit has also been seized from their possession, Police Inspector M.U. Mashi said.

The men were handed over to the Income Tax department for interrogation, he said.

In a separate incident, police intercepted a car near Bhadra Patiya village in Jamnagar's Jodiya taluka late on Tuesday night and seized Rs 22 lakh, mostly in old currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.

A real estate contractor identified as Raja Madam was detained with the currency notes, police said.

In another seizure during routine checking of vehicles in Garbada area of Dahod district, the police found cash of Rs 9.50 lakh in a car.

The 325 notes of Rs 2,000 and 3,000 notes of Rs 100 were kept in a sack.

Police said the two persons sitting in the car with a Maharashtra registration number could not come up with a satisfactory reply about what the cash was meant for and from where it was collected at a time of restriction over large cash withdrawals.

They were arrested for further questioning.

--IANS

desai/pgh/