Sarangi's visit had come about after a series of complaints by mill owners accusing Excise officials of harassment and physical torture during raids and searches. While the Excise department charges mill owners with evading excise to the tune of crores, the mill owners on their part blame the department.

Last week Sarangi brought the two sides for an across-the-table discussion in a bid to end the atmosphere of mutual distrust -- at least three mill owners have lodged police complaints against Excise officials for allegedly beating its staff or workers during raids while the raiding parties had different stories to narrate -- prevailing for quite some time now.

A committee with four representatives from the industry -- Arun Jariwala, Navneet Jariwala, Bhagwandas Jariwala, C R Patil and Excise Commissioner Anant Ram -- was formed to investigate future incidents as also those in the recent past. Both sides gave an apparent impression that peace had been brought for sometime.

But that was not to be. Lawyer Ramesh Kapadia of Vishnu Dyeing and Printing Mills, the last mill to file a police complaint against harassment, in Kadodara has alleged that the director and workers were driven out of the mill premises during a raid on April 24.

Kapadia stated that the Excise officials stayed in the mill premises up to 2 a.m. on April 28, alleging that the raiding party allowed its competitors a free access to Vishnu Mill's premises. Kapadia alleged that many vehicles belonging to his client's Kadodara-based competitors were freely moving inside the mill compound.

Kapadia further alleged that during those four days 12 computer floppies, containing business secrets and formulae, were stolen from the mill premises along with rubber stamps and files. None of these figures in the items listed in the Panchnama document by the Excise department.

Kapadia, in an advertisement released in vernacular newspapers, claimed that his client had suffered irreparable damage due to loss of those floppies and other material. The advertisement requests persons having information of those floppies -- be they in the possession of ``government employees, found in government offices or any other mill premises or any other place ''-- to contact Vishnu Mills and promises suitable reward. It also threatens to prosecute those found possessing the floppies.