It rained money from the 15th floor office of an engineering company on Jawaharlal Nehru Road on Wednesday evening. Bundles of Rs500, 100 and 50, adding up to Rs3.82 lakh, say the Kolkata police. Employees of an engineering company thought better of throwing away the unaccounted money than being confronted by income tax (I-T) men during a raid.

Pedestrians were taken by surprise seeing all that money rain on them. But even before the possibly greedy ones could think of touching it, a police team reached the spot and collected the money.

Kolkata police deputy commissioner (detective department) Javed Shamim, confirmed that his sleuths collected Rs 3.82 lakh from the streets and handed them over to the I-T department.

An I-T team led by deputy commissioner Nicholas Murmu had raided the Sandip Make Engineering company on the 15th floor of Everest Building. "Probably, employees of the company threw the notes so that it does not land in the hands of I-T officials," Shamim said.

It is still not known if the money the police recovered was the exact amount thrown out of the 15th floor window. The police said their duty was over after they handed the recovered money to the I-T department.

I-T officials in Kolkata refused comment.Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh blasted the Centre on Thursday, staying it wanted to jail him. 

"I gave this government a new lease of life and now it is preparing to send me to jail," Mulayam said, accusing the Centre of using the CBI to nail him. "It is at the (Central) government's behest that Rs10,000 has been shown as 1 lakh and Rs35,000 entered as 35 lakh (in the disproportionate assets case)," he said. "A cinema hall in Etawah has been shown as belonging to me, which is a big lie... why will a person who doesn't even see movies, build a cinema hall?" he quipped. 

Such statements only show that the SP-Congress alliance is bound to come unstuck even before it takes shape.

Sumanta Ray Chaudhuri/ DNA-Daily News & Analysis Source: 3D Syndication