Chennai: The fake income-tax officer, who had landed at the house of Jayalalithaa’s niece Deepa on Saturday for carrying out a ‘raid’ and fled the scene when the police and the media arrived, has now implicated her husband Madhavan in the fraud, according to police.
Surrendering at the Mambalam police station late Sunday, Prabakaran of Villupuram reportedly gave a statement alleging that it was Madhavan who had provided him with the fake IRS officer ID card with his photograph and also a fake ‘search warrant’ for the ‘raid’ in the early hours of Saturday.
Claiming he was a MBA graduate running hotels at Villupuram and Puducherry, the man said Madhavan had visited his hotel some three months ago and offered to give him a role in a film he was making. About a fortnight back, Madhavan contracted him and asked him to send his photograph for preparing an ID card which he should use for enacting the role of an IT officer on a raid mission, which would be some sort of a test shoot for the film.
On arriving at Deepa’s place, he found she had gone out of town and her husband Madhavan was waiting to receive him. Madhavan called his wife to inform about the I-T raid and she coolly replied she was getting in touch with her lawyer who would reach the house quickly. The lawyer arrived within a short time but by then there were also several policemen and media persons as well.
In his written confession to the Mambalam police, Prabakaran said he panicked when he saw so many cops and media persons, and pleaded with Madhavan to bail him out. The latter told him to scale a water tank and the compound wall at the back side and escape. Prabakaran managed to flee despite being chased by the policemen and media persons. He had to surrender before the police the following day as the CCTV footage identified him and the cops zeroed in on his family in the effort to ferret him out.
News of Prabakaran surrendering at the Mambalam police station leaked to the media and a large posse of TV and print journalists landed there. Some of them rushed to Deepa’s house just in time to get Madhavan get into his car to move out. When they questioned him about Prabakaran implicating him, Deepa’s husband pushed them aside and drove away. Attempts to contact him did not succeed as his phone was switched off and nobody in the house seemed to know his whereabouts.
“We produced Prabakaran in the Saidapet court for remand. He has been charged under various sections, such as impersonation and cheating. We will also question Madhavan”, said Inspector G. Prabhu of the Mambalam station.
