Nagaland cash trail: Bank a/c in tribal areas under I-T lens

GUWAHATI: Income-tax sleuths are on the cash trail from New Delhi to Nagaland after cash of Rs 3.5 crore of demonetised Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes was recovered in a charted jet in Dimapur airport. The taxmen feel the incident is an organised network of money laundering where the tribal state of Nagaland is being targeted.

The I-T department has put under scanner bank accounts of the tribal areas in the wake of demonetization.

I-T sleuths have recovered Rs 3.5 core from Anato Zhimomi, a local businessman, who claimed the money belonged to him and produced an I-T exemption certificate.

A businessmen Amarjeet Kumar Singh who traveled from Hisar to Dimapur in Nagaland with the cash was apprehended by CISF on Tuesday. I-T sleuths interrogated Anato and Singh in Hisar where Anato revealed that he was doing it for a Delhi-based businessman. Anato heads a group of industries and his properties in Nagaland is being raided. Anato is son in-law of former chief minister and Lok Sabha MP Neiphiu Rio and son of former Rajya Sabha MP and former industry minister late Khekiho Zhimomi. Rio supports NDA government in the Centre.

A senior official in I-T department told ET, “The money involved in the whole thing can be over Rs 10 Crore. A team of IT officials will soon visit Dimapur.” An I-T official said, “We have tracked another Rs 7 crore allegedly deposited by Anato in his Axis Bank account in Dimapur.”