IDS: Under scanner Mahesh Shah taken back home in police uniform

City police were on Sunday caught up in a controversy after they gave the property dealer Mahesh Shah, who declared undisclosed income of Rs 13,860 crore, a police uniform to wear when taking him back to his house.

Inspector M U Mashi of Satellite area police station said Shah was dressed in police uniform so as to conceal his identity for security reasons. The explanation came after photographs of Shah in khaki uniform circulated on social media. Shah, questioned over his startling claim of undisclosed wealth, was allowed to go home by Income Tax Department officials this morning.

"It is our duty to provide protection. We just wanted to conceal his identity. Such steps are necessary to protect him in view of threat to his security," said inspector Mashi, when asked by the media about the pictures. He also said that police personnel had been deployed outside Shah's residence for security. On Saturday, Shah made a sensational claim at a TV studio that he was used as a 'front' to declare Rs 13,860 crore under IDS.

He was taken away for questioning from the studio last evening and interrogated through the night at the Income Tax office in Ahmedabad. P C Mody, Director of Investigations, Income Tax, said Shah had been asked to remain present again at the office at 11.30 am on Monday. "But it is up to him what time he eventually appears," said Mody. Shah came under the scanner after he failed to pay Rs 1,560 crore, 25 per cent of the total 45 per cent tax on the disclosed amount, as the first instalment by November 30.