NEWS
SCHEDULES
COLUMNS
PREVIOUS TOURS
OTHER SPORTS
STATISTICS
INTERVIEWS
SLIDE SHOW
ARCHIVES

Rediff Shopping

Shop & gift from thousands of products!   Books     Music       Apparel   Jewellery   Flowers   More..      Safe Shopping

High drama at Dalmiya's premises

Rifat Jawaid, in Calcutta

The Income Tax raids on former International Cricket Council president Jagmohan Dalmiya's residence at 10, Alipore Road and 32 Theatre Road office in Calcutta early Thursday morning are still on and expected to continue till late night. They began at 0830 IST.

About 30 IT officers arrived in as many as 14 ambassadors and Maruti Gypsies, and barged into Dalmiya's house and office. Dalmiya was in Delhi at the time.

Waiting mediamen were refused entry at both places. Though the IT officials thwarted the scribes' attempts to sneak into either of these premises, they couldn't prevent their entry at Dalmiya's residence in the afternoon.

At about 1500 IST, after a minor scuffle with the two constables deployed by the Calcutta Police at Dalmiya House in Alipore, reporters and television cameramen entered the premises. However, the senior IT personnel, busy flipping through documents, successfully succeeded keeping them on the ground floor.

Indeed, it was high drama at both places. At 0900 IST, a man claiming to be a locksmith got into a tiff with the watchmen present at Dalmiya's residence. Unable to enter in, the man, known as Shamsul, began yelling. Visibly exasperated by the humiliation meted out to him, Shamsul told mediamen that he had been called by the IT people to open Dalmiya's locker, as the keys were in the latter's possession.

"Aaama ke era kaino aatkacche, ami boochtei parchi na. Aamake ekhane lockerer tala bhaangte bola hoeche, sei jonne ami eschi (I really don't understand why aren't they allowing me to go in? I have come here merely because I have been asked to break the locker)," Shamsul remarked.

In response to rediff.com's inquiry about the IT personnel's sudden arrival at Dalmiya's residence, a watchman reacted angrily saying, "Dekhchen to chappa mara hochche. Amake aar ki jigash korchen (You know it better that raids are going on. What more you want to know from me."

At Theatre Road, though the media succeeded in entering Dalmiya's office along with IT officials, they were soon asked to leave the premises. A watchman at Dalmiya's office this afternoon informed that the IT officers had finished searching "sahab's" room and were busy going through documents in the other two rooms.

"The IT officers asked the manager to submit all the keys to them. They also took the custody of all the computers," he said.

Immediately, he was admonished by the raiding officials and warned he could lose his job if he revealed anything more to the media.

Related report: IT-CBI joint raids on cricketers, officials