A post on social media which shows photographs of police officers showing media personnel a huge quantity of gold ornaments that was seemingly seized or recovered is being shared with a claim that the recovery was made from a Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) board member J Sekhar Reddy.
The post goes on the state the amount of the recovery and adds that the Income Tax (IT) department seized Rs 106 crore cash, 127 kg gold biscuits, and diamonds worth Rs 60 crore.
However, we found that the claim is misleading on two counts:
The photographs of the seized gold was a recovery made recently by the police in Vellore following a theft of over 15kg gold from Jos Alukkas jewellery store.
It is true that a property belonging to Reddy was raided and huge array of cash and gold was seized, but the incident happened in 2016.
Further, Reddy was later given a clean chit by the CBI in 2020. In fact, as per news reports, he was brought back on the TTD board as a "special invitee" after being removed from his position following the raids.
CLAIM
The message going viral reads:
"Dear friends, this is Mr J Shekar Reddy , one of the 17 trustees of Tirupathi Tirumala Temple. IT officers raided his house and farm house. Rs 106 crores in cash was seized along with 127 kg gold biscuits , diamonds worth 60 crores! What about other 16 trustees of TTD? think before you donate!
Either it is used for conversion or for personal benefits (sic)."
We found that the post was being shared on Facebook, archives of some of which can be found here, here, and here.
We also received the post as a query on our WhatsApp tipline. One of the queries had the same claim written in Marathi and was accompanied by a video of showing the some pieces of jewellery kept on a table.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We first conducted a keyword search for "raid on J Sekhar Reddy" to check if a raid was indeed carried out at the premises of J Shekhar Reddy and if he was the trustee of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams.
WHO IS SEKHAR REDDY?
The results led us to news reports published in December 2016 that talked about a raid conducted at a property belonging to Reddy.
A report published in the Deccan Chronicle on 9 December 2016 was titled, "Rs 100 crore in cash, 120 kg gold seized in Income Tax raids in Chennai"
It said that the cash and gold were recovered from "residences and offices owned by TTD Board member J Sekhar Reddy". The story was extensively covered by news channels because crores of cash in the then newly-issued Rs 2,000 notes were also found at Reddy's residence.
However, in September 2020, a special CBI court dismissed the case against Reddy and some of his associates on grounds of lack of evidence.
Earlier in 2019, he was back in the TTD board after being nominated as a special invitee by the Andhra Pradesh government. He was removed from his position after his arrest following the raids.
PHOTOGRAPHS OF RECOVERED GOLD FROM A RECENT BUST
The photographs showing recovered jewellery was from a recent bust by the Vellore police. As per a news report in The News Minute, some unidentified people broke into a Jos Alukkas jewellery store in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore and stole 15 kg of gold jewellery worth over Rs 8 crore.
One of the culprits was arrested by the Vellore police on Monday, 20 December, and 15.9 kg of stolen gold and diamonds was recovered.
A report in The Indian Express identified the arrested person as one Teekaraman, of Kuchipalayam in Pallikonda who is "a mason and has cases of two-wheeler and laptop thefts against him."
Evidently, an old case from 2016 was shared as a recent one by linking it with the photographs of a recent bust by the Vellore police.
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