Chennai, Dec 1 (IANS): The Income Tax department is conducting searches at several premises of the Supermarket Chain, Saravana Super Stores on Wednesday. Around 100 teams of IT sleuths are involved in the searches at different locations in Chennai, Madurai, and Coimbatore.

According to sources in the IT department, the searches are being conducted at 14 places across the state with 8 premises in Chennai are being searched. The rest of the searches are held at Madurai and Coimbatore.

The IT officials are tight-lipped and are not allowing customers inside the shop at Purusawalkam and T-Nagar in Chennai.

Saravana Superstore is a multi-super market with chains across Tamil Nadu and one of the biggest shopping points for people of Tamil Nadu. The T-Nagar and Purusawalkam shops have huge turnovers and the roads inside and outside the shops are generally blocked with large number of people reaching to shop.

The Saravana Superstores, textile shop at Purasawalkam, and grocery shop at T-Nagar generally witness huge crowds and both the shops were subjected to searches. The furniture shop of the group at Chrompet is also being searched.

Quality materials at cheap rates were the major attraction of the Saravana Super Store for many years in Tamil Nadu and was a market leader in many areas.