Tamil Nadu Secretariat staff stunned by unprecedented Income Tax raids

Chennai: The secretariat, the power centre of state politics, was stunned by the unprecedented income tax raids in the chamber of chief secretary P. Ramamohana Rao on Wednesday.

The raids at the secretariat were conducted for more than five hours as it began at 2.45 pm and ended at around 8 pm. As soon as the IT officials entered the chief secretary’s chamber, a section of them carried all computers, chips and sim cards in the chief secretary’s room to the conference hall, where they scrutinised the details recorded in the systems, sim cards and memory chips.

The I-T officials brought the chief secretary’s room under their control and began their search operations. They did not allow any of the staff in chief secretary office to leave the room.

Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam who visited the secretariat in the afternoon was in his room till 5.50 pm, while all the ministers came to their offices and carried on with their routine operations. But, none of them including the Chief Minister spoke to the media regarding the I-T raid.