Excise teams raid Punjab Knits, traders protest

A raid by the Excise and Taxation Department's mobile wing on Thursday turned into a high drama when traders gheraoed them and started raising slogans against them.

The teams from Patiala and Ludhiana came at Punjab Knits, a famous trading house at Chawal Bazar, early in the morning. The operation continued for the whole day and when the teams were about to move out, the traders did not let them out. They protested against this move and even the angry shopkeepers had shut their shops to lodge protest. Not only this, the traders even snatched the papers and records of excise officers which they had gathered during the operation. The papers had details of the tax evasion being done by the unit.

Later, members of Knitwear Club along with its president Darshan Dawar did not let the officers move out. The drama continued for more than two hours. However, few officers managed to come out and they reported the matter to the police. The police were trying to hammer out a compromise between the two parties at the time of filing this report.

Mobile wing incharge Gurvinder Sandhu was leading this operation along with officers from Ludhiana and Patiala. He was insisting on taking back the documents which the traders had snatched as they wanted to determine the tax evasion done by Punjab Knits.

Even on Monday, the Knitwear Club members had met the excise officers in Ludhiana and requested them not to conduct too many inspections which were affecting their business in festival season. The members had called it undue harassment while they were paying taxes.

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