CHENNAI: The CBI on Wednesday raided a brother of A Raja, who had once been
'conferred' an Indian Forest Service post, his sister who is a school
headmistress, a pro-DMK journalist and a Left-leaning Christian priest.
Teams of the CBI fanned out across the state and knocked on more than 20
addresses as part of their 2G spectrum scam probe. Initially, it looked like a
random exercise to scan those close to the former Union telecom minister. But a
closer look revealed that though Raja was at the centre of it all, many of
those who had been raided were linked to each other.
The raids on the premises of Jegath Gasper Raj, managing trustee of the NGO
Tamil Maiyam, indicated that the investigators had their scanners on close
associates of chief minister M Karunanidhi's family.
Gasper Raj is a priest but effortlessly straddles the worlds of Christmas
carols and Tamil Eelam. He has business interests and is known to be close to
Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi.
Kanimozhi is on the board of Tamil Maiyam, an NGO Gasper Raj heads. The two
have been the chief organisers of Chennai Sangamam, a yearly cultural
extravaganza.
Some TV channels reported that Rathinam, an auditor who works for CM
Karunanidhi's third wife Rajathi Ammal, too had been raided. But this could not
be independently confirmed.
Among the others raided, Nakkeeran associate editor A Kamaraj has been
personally close to Raja, Kanimozhi, and Gasper Raj. ''Yes, many of these
people are close to each other. But the raids are just a wild goose chase.
These are people who met Raja last week. That seems to have been the only
criterion,'' said D Prakash, Kamaraj's colleague.
var zz=0;var sldsh=0;var bellyaddiv = ' ';
var stindex=100;
var stp=150;
var taglen=0;
var tmp;
var tagcheck = new Array("div","span","br","font","a");
var storycontent = document.getElementById("storydiv").innerHTML;
var firstpara =
storycontent.substring(0,storycontent.toLowerCase().indexOf("")).toLowerCase();
function findptt(cnt){
zz++;
if(zz == 10)return;
var xxx=-1,yyy=-1;
var ccnt = cnt;
for(ii=0; ii < tagcheck.length; ii++){
xxx = ccnt.indexOf("
