When officials at Bowring Club opened unused lockers in order to give them to new members, they were in for a surprise when they found Rs 3.9 crore in cash, Rs 5 crore worth jewellery and property documents worth crores. Reports suggest that the property documents are of 25 acres in prime location land in Bengaluru
The lockers were opened on Thursday after members at the club complained that lockers were not available.
Speaking to TNM, HS Srikanth, Secretary of Bowring Club said, “Bowring institute began issuing general notices to people to pay fees for their lockers to regularize the usage by members. Though repeated notices were placed, 126 out of 672 lockers didn’t reply. On Thursday July 19 we began breaking open these lockers.”
While doing so, the staff found six black bags (two from each locker) from locker numbers 69, 71 and 78 in the badminton courts. The police was immediately alerted and the bags were moved to an almirah in the administration office with video surveillance.
“Since it was late in the night, we couldn’t do much about it. We could make out that in one of the bags there was some cash. By the time we informed the police and took care of the proceedings, it was late,” he added.
On Friday, the Income Tax department was informed and the officers unearthed Rs 2000 currency notes worth Rs 3.73 crores, Rs 500 currency notes worth Rs 17 lakhs.
“By Friday noon, Avinash Amarlal himself walked in and said that the stuff was his, presumably after seeing the events unfolding on the news. A total of Rs 3.90 crores cash, diamonds worth Rs 7.80 crores, 650 grams of gold – 600 grams in the form of biscuits and 50 grams in the form of coins, two luxury-brand watches, land documents of properties in Devanahalli and other areas and cheques were recovered,” Srikanth said.
Avinash Amarlal is reportedly the proprieter of Avinash Enterprises, a wholesale retailer of tubeless tyres.
IT officials reportedly raided Amarlal in 2011, who was allegedly the financier of real estate mogul P Dayananda Pai, whose associates were being raided.