Indore : Mohan Kumar Ludhiyani, whose establishments are being surveyed by Income tax sleuths in the City, is suspected to have been the man behind laundering crores of rupees for jailed seer Asaram Bapu.
Following a tip-off from Enforcement Directorate, which had registered a case against Asaram for money laundering in 2014, the I-T officials had stumbled on to Ludhiyani. He was mentioned as ‘Mohan Goodricke’ in one of the documents seized by ED and expected to have laundered a sum of Rs 168 crore for the self-proclaimed godman.
The survey operation in Indore is primarily being overseen by officials of Surat wing of I-T investigations.
The search operations in the City continued for the second day at Ludhiyani’s 16 establishments on the second day on Thursday.
In the year 2014, the ED got hold of a document mentioning the Rs 168 crore against a name ‘Mohan Goodricke’. This individual turned out to be Ludhiyani, who also manufactures tea by the brand Goodricke.
Sources claimed that a bribe of Rs 13 crore was paid by the Asaram’s son Narayan Sai to a senior police officer of Surat. The I-T officials believe that Rs 8 crore of the bribe was arranged from Indore, allegedly by Ludhiyani, local businessmen Keshav Nachani, Tejinder Pal Singh Ghumman and others.
The I-T officials also have the information that large amount of money belonging to Asaram is invested in real estate sector of the City by the builders. Hence, the search is covering the premises of the some of the local builders too.