Andhra Pradesh

Four Mumbai men held; gold seized

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, SEPT. 10. Four persons reportedly working for some Mumbai-based jewellery merchants were picked up on the charge of selling huge quantities of gold without paying any tax from the Mayura lodge in Jambagh by the Sultanbazar police on Friday.

Gold ornaments weighing 12.26 kg and worth Rs. 75 lakhs were seized from their possession, the Hyderabad Police Commissioner, R.P. Singh, told newsmen here.

Cases were booked against them under Section 420 (cheating) of the IPC read with Section 30 of the State General Sales Tax Act. The accused - Kishore Rewanth (30), Vinay Singh (21), Abhishek Bafna (21) and Bharath (35) - reportedly confessed to the police that they had been visiting the city for the past two years and selling gold to local jewellers illegally. When the police raided the lodge, the accused initially pretended they were cloth merchants. Subsequent searches unearthed jewellery concealed in the room.

Doubts over claims

Expressing doubts over the claims of the arrested that they were working for some Mumbai-based companies, the police decided to further probe their version. "It is unbelievable that traders have sent workers to sell 12 kg gold," Mr. Singh said. Two of the arrested had been regularly selling gold ornaments to a couple of shops in Sultanbazar. Owners of the two shops would be summoned for questioning to ascertain facts. According to the accused, their proprietors would procure gold from different sources and make ornaments of latest models with workers. They chose to sell jewellery through a network of agents to evade taxes, it was learnt.

Penalty

The Commercial Taxes Officer, S.V. Kasivisveswara Rao, said that anyone coming from other states and want to do business in the State should inform the local CTO. A fine of 1 per cent on the total cost of gold and 2 per cent penalty, total amounting to Rs. 2.25 lakhs, would be imposed on the arrested.

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