Property dealer, son fire at raiding taxmen, arrested

Jalandhar, Dec 16 (IANS) A wealthy property dealer and his son from this Punjab city are cooling their heels in police custody after they fired at a team of income tax officials who raided their house and offices here, officials said Tuesday.

Property dealer Yashpal Khanna and his son Rohit Khanna were arrested Monday after they surrendered.

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Rohit Khanna fired at the raiding team that went to search their residence. He and his father managed to escape after firing at the raiding team and took with them important documents and money, income tax officials told police.

'We have learnt a lesson from this firing incident. In future, we will conduct such raids with police support,' Additional Joint Director of Income Tax (investigation) at Jalandhar, Abha Rani Singh, said.

Singh said the father-son duo were able to escape as the police reinforcements, called by the income tax officials, took time to reach the spot.

The Khannas were running a land development firm and dealing in properties.

The income tax team searched the home of the Khannas in the Model town locality and recovered documents showing property agreements worth Rs.80 million on a single day.

The officials also seized a rifle and Rs.650,000 in cash.

The house of Khanna's business partner, R.K. Trivedi, was also raided and documents regarding unaccounted land transactions were recovered besides Rs.1.3 million in cash and over 7,600 Australian dollars. Trivedi later surrendered Rs.12.5 million to the officials.

Another business associate, Harish Sachdeva's house was also searched here and cash worth Rs.1.95 million recovered along with property transaction documents. Sachdeva later surrendered over Rs.25 million to the income tax department.