A day before Bihar poll, Rs 19 crore seized

The income tax authorities today seized Rs 19 crore unaccounted cash during search operations carried out at Delhi and Muzaffarpur district in Bihar, which will begin its first phase of Assembly polls from tomorrow.
As per the directives of Election Commission, the income tax official carried out raids and found Rs 5 crore from nine people in Delhi and Rs 13.75 crore from five persons in Muzaffarpur, Additional Chief Electoral officer R Lakshmanan told reporters here.
The IT officials are investigating the matter, he said, adding that action would be taken on the basis their reports.
Prima facie, the money seems to be belonging to some textile traders of Muzaffarpur and it would be probed whether it has any hawala connection, Lakshmanan said.

The authorities also seized Rs 30.36 lakh in cash from various places in Bihar. Of this, Rs 18.53 lakh was found from Vaishali, Rs 7.18 lakh from West Champaran and Rs 4.65 lakh Muzaffarpur.
The authorities seized 3,560 litres of illicit country and foreign liquor during raids at various places across the state, Lakshmanan said.

In places where the first phase of polling will be held, the authorities have altogether lodged 143 cases of Defacement of Public Property and 15 cases of Defacement of Private Property.
They have also seized 304 arms/weapons, 105 explosives, 61 bombs and 940 cartridges. A total 25 illegal arms manufacturing centres were raided by officials, he said.

A total of 47,384 preventive arrests have been made while 14,932 non-bailable warrants have been executed, Lakshmanan said, adding that Rs 2.10 crore was collected as fine imposed during vehicle checking.