Protests follow IT raids at actor Vijayakant’s properties

As the raids began at about 7.30 am at the actor’s residence in Chennai, his supporters arrived at the scene and pelted police vehicles parked in the area with stones. A group of DMDK volunteers set an effigy of Karunanidhi afire near the Tashildar’s office in Tambaram and in Salaigramam, another part of the city, while another vent its ire by beating Karunanidhi posters with footwear.

DMDK party presidium chairman Panrutti S Ramachandran, a former AIADMK minister, described the IT raids as a “political vendetta”. The DMDK was “growing from strength to strength” and other parties were “unable to match it”, he said. Incidentally, the Union MoS for Finance S S Palanimanickam belongs to the DMK.

An IT department source said a large team of officers, inspectors and staff, with police protection, fanned out across the state, conducting raids under Sections 132 and 133A of the Income Tax Act, 1961, on premises belonging to Vijayakant, his relatives and a couple of party functionaries in Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore, Cuddalore, and Thiruninravur, and neighbouring Union Territory of Puducherry.

The actor’s rice mill and a clinic belonging to his sister in Madurai were also raided. Officials questioned the actor about the construction of a multi-crore hospital in the heart of Puducherry, apparently also promoted by him. While no seizures have been made so far, the raids were likely to continue tomorrow as well.