Patna: A controversial parliamentarian from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is being investigated by the Income Tax department after a theft at his house led to the recovery of Rs11.4 million (Dh700,705) in cash, a large amount of foreign currency and expensive jewellery.
The firebrand Giriraj Singh, who kicked up a storm at the national level during the Lok Sabha poll campaign when he demanded that those opposing Narendra Modi — then running for Prime Minister — should be dispatched to Pakistan, represents southern Bihar’s Nawada seat in Parliament.
What puts his role under the scanner is that Singh had reportedly told the police that barely around Rs50,000 was stolen by burglars during the theft on Monday from his residential apartment located in Patna’s posh Boring Road locality.
Soon after the theft was reported, police swung into action and caught a person in a suspicious condition who was trying to flee the area using an autorickshaw. The officers’ suspicions were further heightened when the suspect offered them a bribe to make good his escape.
Subsequent searches later led to the recovery of Rs11.4 million in cash stuffed in four suitcases, $600 (Dh2,203), seven expensive watches, and a huge amount of gold jewellery on Tuesday evening, a day after the theft was committed.
During the interrogation, the arrested suspect confessed the cash and gold jewellery had been stolen from the house of a BJP parliamentarian. He also revealed how he, along with the parliamentarian’s servant and personal security guard, had hatched a plan to commit theft at the house some 15 days back.
Based on the revelation made by the arrested person, the police also arrested the other persons allegedly involved in the conspiracy.
Although the parliamentarian was the lucky to have his looted money recovered so soon, the recovery has led to an investigation by Income Tax investigators. They are now probing how so much cash, foreign currency and other valuables were in the parliamentarian’s house, and why he concealed the true value of the stolen property from the police.
What bewilders the tax sleuths is that Singh had declared his total assets at around Rs2.5 million only in his pre-election financial statement as submitted to the Election Commission.
However, the parliamentarian claims that the recovered money is not his but rather this belongs to his cousin.
“It (the recovered cash amounting to Rs11.4 million) belongs to a cousin of mine,” he told the media on Wednesday after remaining silent and being unavailable on his cellphone for 24 hours.
Meanwhile, the recovery of cash caused uproar in both houses of the state legislatures in Bihar on Wednesday, with the ruling Janata Dal (United) and opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) lawmakers demanding the arrest of the BJP parliamentarian.
“Singh should be arrested for hiding such a huge amount of unaccounted cash in his house. If the recovered cash is clean, why did he then tell the police only around Rs50,000 was stolen from his house?” asked JD-U lawmaker Manjit Singh.
