Chennai, Oct 4 (IANS) The film production office of Durai Dayanidhi, son of union minister M.K. Alagiri, who is evading arrest in the multi-crore rupee granite quarrying case was raided Thursday, police said.
A special team from Madurai conducted the raid in the office with the Madras High Court denying anticipatory bail to Dayanidhi Sep 25.
The raid came after police questioned close relatives of Dayanidhi about his whereabouts.
However, no further details were forthcoming from police who raided Cloud Nine, the movie production company located here.
Dayanidhi was a director in Olympus Granite, one of the companies under the government scanner for illegal quarrying. Police are on the lookout for Dayanidhi and have alerted immigration authorities to stop him and 11 others from leaving the country.
The AIADMK government started its crackdown on illegal granite quarries in the Madurai region after former Madurai Collector U. Sahayam in a report estimated the losses incurred from illegal granite mining at around Rs.16,000 crore.
On Sep 15, vigilance officials searched 34 places in Tamil Nadu, after filing two cases against two Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers and a group of state officials for irregularities in quarrying.
The directorate of vigilance and anti-corruption (DVAC) conducted the raid following a detailed inquiry to probe large scale irregularities in granite quarrying in Madurai district over the past several years.
According to the DVAC, a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act has been registered against IAS officers N. Mathivanan and C. Kamaraj and other state government officials.
Mathivanan, currently director at the department of sugar, was formerly the district collector in Madurai.
Kamaraj, managing director of the Tamil Nadu Salt Corp., was a former district collector at Madurai.
According to DVAC, Mathivanan and some officials abused their position, concealed facts pertaining to large scale illegal quarrying by PRP Granites and Exports.
The DVAC also charged them with falsifying the records to show that there was no illegal quarrying by the company.
The DVAC has charged Kamaraj and some officials with abusing their official position to conceal the encroachment and illegal quarrying in the water bodies of Madurai district.
The role of several serving and retired government officials of various departments and private individuals was also being probed, DVAC said.
