LUDHIANA: In a shocking incident of obstructing government servants from discharging their duty, a group of businessmen intimidated and tried to manhandle officers of range-3 of income tax department who had come to conduct a survey at Veer Enterprises In addition to this hundreds of factory workers gathered outside the factory and started protesting against the IT department while the team of officials was inside the factory premises and trying to conduct its action. Group of businessmen also snatched the mobile phone of assistant commissioner Sardar Lal Meena who was leading the survey and they were adamant that officials call off the survey as the owner of the firm was not present on the spot.However tension was defused after huge police force reached the spot and dispersed workers from the spot and the businessmen inside the factory who were not allowing the team to conduct survey were also tackled by police and convinced not to interfere in the IT action. After police’s intervention IT officials resumed their task. TOI has learnt that senior officials of department have recommended lodging a FIR in this case but till the filing of this news no case was registered and survey was still on.Speaking to TOI on condition of anonymity, a high ranking IT official said, "Our team arrived at the factory of Veer Enterprises to conduct survey on suspicion of tax evasion, as soon as they reached the premises they met the accountant of the firm who authorised our team for survey after signing the papers and the owner of the firm too was informed about the survey. But as soon as our team started its work about 10-12 businessmen gathered in the office of the firm and started intimidating our team and in addition to threatening our officers they also snatched mobile phone of one of our officer. These persons were adamant only on one thing that they will not let our team do the survey until the owner of the firm turns up, But our team tried to continue with survey since as per law there is no such rule that survey can be conducted only in presence of owners. These persons not only disrupted the survey but also tried to scare the officials including 2 female Income tax officers who were only performing their duty."

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