Telangana: When Baahubali' came to Musaddilal's

Hyderabad: Minutes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 will no longer be legal tender on November 8 Baahubali and 5,000 others with such names (suspected to be fictitious) “walked into” the Musaddilal Jewellers Private Limited at Banjara Hills(which is actually closed as per CCTV footage seized by IT) and did advanced bookings for buying gold.

Income-Tax department investigations into the Rs 100- crore sales of gold jewellery in lieu of demonetised notes at Musaddilal Jewellers have revealed interesting facts. The list and receipts containing the names of customers include variety of names like Baahubali.

An Income-Tax official questioned, “How come 5,000 people buy at one shop within three hours on the night of the announcement that too they are all advanced bookings and they paid the cash later? Interestingly, he has no enough stock on that day. He had transferred through RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement systems) to other bullion merchants and adjusted it. None of them have given their PAN number nor addresses and no ID proof. The jeweller tried to exploit and had written that he had sold 50 grams or less than it to each fictitious buyers like Baahubali.”

When contacted Musaddilal Jewellers Private limited managing director Nitin Gupta said, “As per the rules for the sales below Rs 2 lakh we don’t need PAN number. I have given statement to the Income-Tax department regarding what I have sold. My phone has been taken by the I-T department.” He confirmed that IT has taken the CCTV footage. When asked about Rs 100 crore transactions on one day he said, “No, not correct.”