IT dept searches premises of Chinese telecom major Huawei

The Income Tax department on Wednesday conducted searches at three premises of the Chinese tech giant Huawei as part of a tax evasion investigation. This is the second raid on the Chinese mobile makers in the past two months. The raids were conducted at Delhi, Gurugram (Haryana) and Bengaluru in the Karnataka office of Huawei. According to sources, during the raid, officials looked at financial documents, account books and company records as part of a tax evasion investigation against the company. Some records have been seized too. The tax department’s move came a day after India banned 54 Chinese apps over privacy, security and espionage concerns. The apps - clones of previously taken down applications that obtained critical permissions to collect sensitive user data - misused and transmitted real-time data to servers located in a hostile country, the government said in a statement.

Huawei on its part said it fully cooperates with the rules and regulations and follows the right procedure. "We have been informed of the visit of the Income Tax team to our office and also of their meeting with some personnel. Huawei is confident our operations in India are firmly compliant to all laws and regulations. We will approach related government departments for more information and fully cooperate as per the rules and regulations and follow the right procedure," the company said in a statement.

In December, the government raided the offices of Xiaomi and Oppo and claimed to have detected alleged unaccounted income worth over Rs 6,500 crore. Earlier this week, the Information and Technology ministry blocked 54 more apps citing a threat to the country's security. These include Tencent Xriver, Nice Video Baidu, Viva Video Editor and gaming app Garena Free Fire Illuminate, citing security and privacy concerns.