Rs 3.5 crore in old notes flown into Nagaland goes missing

GUWAHATI: Central intelligence and income tax agencies are grappling with a peculiar situation with Rs 3.5 crore of cash in scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes "vanishing" after being seized on a private chartered flight at Dimapur in Nagaland. The cash was seized by Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel at Dimapur after a tip-off from the Intelligence Bureau and the local income tax staff was summoned to take further action with regard to the unaccounted wealth.

But to the surprise of CISF personnel, the cash disappeared and the local I-T officer is understood to have claimed that it had been with the security personnel all along. CISF officers who had alerted their headquarters about the seizure were shocked, but could do little as the I-T officer insisted he had nothing to do with the cash.

CISF, which does not have the power to carry out arrests, has reported the matter to IB and Central Board of Direct Taxes.

The plane's "main passenger" was one Amarjit Kumar Singh, a businessman from Bihar who was carrying the cash. The flight VTCP, which had taken off from Hisar in Haryana, was sent back to New Delhi.

A source said Singh told CISF that "someone big" in Delhi had allegedly sent the cash for a Naga businessman. He also named another Naga businessman. The aircraft landed in Dimapur with Singh and an unidentified woman among those on board.

The CISF identified four suspects on the basis of the alert by IB that they were on a mission to launder old currency notes in the state where I-T exemptions offered to Scheduled Tribes offer a window for money laundering.

The exemption is not unique to Nagaland. STs in North Cachar Hills, Karbi Anglong, Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District in Assam, Jaintia and Garo Hills in Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura are exempted from income tax subject to certain conditions.

Dimapur deputy commissioner of income tax A Kitto Zhimomi refused to comment on the haul. He said only the CBDT was authorized to talk to the media.