Revealed! All about India’s longest IT raid that inspired Ajay Devgn’s upcoming movie ‘Raid’
‘Raid‘ starring Ajay Devgn and Ileana D’Cruz is released today and receiving good comments from audience and critics.’Raid’ is the story of the longest-running Income Tax raid in the history of India. Inspired by a true case, ‘Raid’ is set in the year 1981, Lucknow.
According to a report in India Today, on July 16, 1981, morning, the IT officials raided the house of a businessman and Congress MLA Sardar Inder Singh in Kanpur. 90 experienced officers under the leadership of the then Income Tax Commissioner of Lucknow, Sharda Prasad Pandey, carried out the longest raid. 200 police personals were also present for the safety of the IT officials.
Interestingly, the raid went on for more than 18 hours. There were 45 people, just for the counting of the notes. And, a total of Rs 1.6 crore were recovered in cash besides other assets such as gold. But this raid had happened peacefully.
Well now, you must be thinking then why the film shows violence. Well, it might be taken from another incident, from the same decade.
There was another income tax raid on September 14, 1989, on the factories and homes of two industrialists- paper mill owner Harish Chhabra and jewellery dealer Chitranjan Swarup. Around 88 officers were tasked with finding the black money/assets and approximated around 2 crores. The raid started normally. However, word got out that Chhabra’s assets were being raided, and he managed to get a mob to attack the IT officials, despite the presence of police there.
A lot of IT officials were brutally beaten up. A number of them were hospitalised and some were paralysed forever. To add to the humiliation, the officers who raided Chhabra’s factory were stripped naked and beaten up.