STORY:
Income
tax raid in virar Mumbai at Bhai Thakur's office and home. In India the biggest
cash 13500 crore rupees.
OTHER
VERSIONS
Biggest
ever seizure in IT raid.. unaccounted 13k Crore at Bhai Thakur's office &
home in Virar.Mum.
HOAX OR FACT:
Partially
Fact, with possible misinformation.
ANALYSIS:
The
message shared widely online by Indians and others states that an Income Tax
raid conducted in Virar, Mumbai (India) at Bhai Thakur's (Jayendra Thakur)
office & home has recovered more than 13,000 Crore rupees. Some versions of
the message also called it as the biggest ever seizure in an IT raid! Let us
analyze the facts about the said incident.
TIMES OF INDIA
REPORTS
On
13 August 2014, The Times of India (Mumbai) reported about
the aftermath of an income tax department raid conducted on a group of builders
in the Vasai-Virar region of Mumbai two weeks earlier. Accordingly, the Thane
unit of the IT department raided Ameya Builders, Swastik Group and its partner
Rajiv Patil, along with the first mayor of the Vasai-Virar Municipal
Corporation and a relative (kin) of former MLA Hitendra Thakur. (Note that Bhai
Thakur is elder brother of Hitendra Thakur. More on this later) The IT
department seized cash and jewellery worth Rs 5.5 Crore in the raids at over 50
premises, an official said. It is also reported that following the raid, a
group of builders admitted to concealment of Rs 390-crore earnings.
Notably,
the officials said that the tax evasion was by way of manipulation of land
deals where Thakur's Viva Group's role has emerged.
VIVA GROUP
Viva
Group is a multifaceted business c onglomerate, which on their website describes itself as 'one
of the largest land aggregators in Mumbai, India'. Viva Homes is run by
Jayendra Bhai Thakur's son Rohan Jaye Thakur, and Bhai Thakur's nephew
Siddharth is a Viva Group director. There's a belief that the company is backed
by Bhai Thakur. Viva group has various business interests and also has a trust
that runs many educational institutions in the Vasai-Virar region. According to
an official, "Thakur's trust has facilitated several land transactions.
Prima facie, the complicity of the trust in changing the user status of the land
procured for educational purposes and selling it for commercial purposes has
emerged".
There's
no major news coverage on the IT raid, perhaps because Bhai Thakur has a
criminal background.
GANGSTER WITH
CRIMINAL BACKGROUND
Jayendra
alias Bhai Thakur is the elder brother of politician and chairman of
regional political party Bahujan Vikas Aaghadi (BVA), Hitendra Thakur, a former MLA. As reported in
an archive of Tehelka.com, Bhai Thakur
is a local landing agent in Mumbai, whose men are scattered in every village in
the Vasai-Virar belt. He lost an eye in attack by a rival Virar gang. An
article in MumbaiMirror.com points
that Jayendra Bhai Thakur has several murder, extortion, and land grabbing
cases against him. He came into limelight in the 1980s when the Vasai-Virar and
Naigaon belts were booming, and was sentenced to death for a 1992 shootout at
JJ Hospital (TADA case), but the Supreme Court reduced his sentence to life in
prison.
After
being in jail for seven years, the gangster Jayendra Vishnu Thakur alias 'Bhai Thakur'
was granted bail in Feb.
2007. It is said that Bhai Thakur parted company with Dawood Ibrahim post-Bombay blasts,
and even joinedChhota Rajan. Bhai Thakur was also the
prime accused in the murders of activist Navleen Kumar and developer Suresh
Dube, who tried to stop Thakur from grabbing adivasi land.
BIG FAT WEDDING
In
December 2013, Jayendra Bhai Thakur held a big fat wedding of
his daughter Priyanka Thakur. The grand wedding reception that was held at VIVA
Melange ground covering an area of 1.5 lakh sq ft (apart from parking zones)
witnessed more than 10,000 guests (including noted politicians and actors),
flowers from across the world and choppers to ferry VIPs.
It
is often said that Bhai Thakur has many politicians on his payroll. All this is
conclusive of saying that the gangster Bhai Thakur is very wealthy, apart
from being influential.
ABOUT PICTURES
The
many pictures of hefty piles of cash and income tax officials that come with
the stories of this IT raid in Vasai-Virar region of Mumbai are, in fact, old
ones not related to the present raid.
IN CONCLUSION
It
is a fact that the Thane unit of the IT department conducted a raid on a group
of builders in the Vasai-Virar region of Mumbai, which also included a relative
(kin) of former MLA Hitendra Thakur, the younger brother of Jayendra 'Bhai' Thakur.
The Times of India reported that in all these raids, IT department seized cash
and jewellery worth Rs 5.5 Crore, and later, a group of builders even admitted
to concealment of Rs 390-crore earnings. So the exact amount of money
laundering (related to Bhai Thakur) cannot be known for now.
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