I-T officials grill Hasan Ali

MUMBAI: Stud-farm owner Hasan Ali, being investigated for alleged money laundering and tax evasion running into crores of rupees, was on Thursday grilled for about five hours by Income Tax officials.

Ali, who owns property in Mumbai and Pune, has already been questioned by the Income Tax Investigations department in Pune for over four hours.

Smartly dressed in spotless white kurta and sporting shades, Ali left the Director General Investigations' office in a sleek Mercedes late in the evening.

To evade the waiting media, he sped away in his Mercedes after coming out through the back door of the office at Scindia House in South Mumbai and refused to speak to reporters who chased him.

Senior IT officials, including DG (Investigations) S N Moorthy, declined to say what questions were put to Ali during the interrogation.

As the next logical step, Ali would be asked to file his tax returns for eight years from 1999, which he is reported to have not filed so far.

Hasan had filed returns till around 1999, after which the details were not clear and being gathered by investigators, I-T sources said.

The IT department has asked him to file tax returns for a block period of last eight years and is preparing a list of his movable and immovable assets, including hard cash.