Chandigarh, January 31
The income tax authorities today raided various offices and other premises of the nascent MDLR Airlines and its promoters in many towns of Haryana, including Sirsa and Gurgaon, where the head office of the airlines is located. Its office in Chandigarh was also raided.
The airlines is promoted by Sirsa-based controversial businessman Gopal Goel, alias Gopal Kanda, who has close ties with former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, president of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). During the last Assembly elections, Kanda had weighed Chautala against currency notes in Sirsa.
In fact, Kanda rose from the owner of a shoe shop, “Shoe Camp”, at Sirsa to become a big gun during the INLD regime. His shoe shop was one of the premises raided by the income tax authorities today.
It is believed that while “MD” are initials of his father, “LR” are initials of Kanda’s son in the name of the airlines.
According to information received here, at one of the MDLR offices situated near the Tara Baba Kutiya in Sirsa, the raiding party was attacked by “unknown persons”, who are suspected to be employees of Kanda. The attackers snatched away documents and a laptop from the raiding party.
The Sirsa police has registered a
criminal case on a complaint lodged by additional director, income tax, Munshi Ram against the “unknown persons”. Newsmen covering the raids were also attacked by the Kanda sympathisers. An FIR has been lodged by two Sirsa-based journalists against Sushil Saini, Amit Sharma and others in this regard.
It is learnt that the raids started at about 8 am when about 60 officials of the IT department reached Sirsa in about a dozen vehicles. The raids were continuing till late in the evening. The IT authorities recovered certain property documents during the raids.
Kanda has been in controversies. He was booked for allegedly grabbing three acres of government land worth crores in Sirsa when the INLD was in power. Though the incident took place in December 2004, the case against him could be registered only after the change of government in June 2005. The FIR was lodged by the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, which had a complex on this land. The complex comprised the nigam’s powerhouse and the residences of the superintending engineer, the executive engineer, the subdivisional engineer and others. The accused had demolished the complex and occupied the land.
But such was his clout even after his mentors went out of office that he could not be arrested in the case even though the Congress was ruling the state. In fact, it was during the Congress regime that he got the licence to operate the airlines, despite strong objection raised by firebrand Congress MLA from Palwal Karan Singh Dalal.
In January 2007, Dalal wrote to the Prime Minister alleging that the grant of LOI granted to Kanda to operate an airlines by the ministry of civil aviation had jeopardised the country’s security. The Congress MLA alleged that till 1999 Kanda’s only known business was a retail shoe shop in Sirsa. The Haryana Financial Corporation put a factory, Kanda Polymer, owned by Kanda’s family, to auction in December 1999 to recover a loan. The same year the Chautala government came to power and suddenly Kanda was rolling in money.
Accusing Kanda of amassing wealth through underhand means, Dalal had alleged that Kanda had tried to get a licence for a colony in 2006 on a piece of land already acquired by the government in Sector 19 of Sirsa. However, his efforts to get the licence failed after the issue was raised in the Haryana Assembly.
