Bahraich, April 6 -- In a major crackdown on tax evasion, the Crime Branch's SIT (GST) team in Bahraich arrested two accused for allegedly causing a revenue loss of over Rs.10 crore to the government by operating fake firms and generating forged invoices to claim fraudulent Input Tax Credit (ITC). The arrests were made on Sunday in connection with Case Crime No. 183/2025 registered at Kotwali Nagar police station under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The accused have been identified as Shubham Gupta of Barabanki district, and Nek Alam of Sitapur district. Circle Officer (CO) City, Narayan Dutt Mishra, told Hindustan Times that the case originated from a written complaint filed on August 25, 2025, by assistant commissioner and state tax officer Sandeep Kumar Singh. The complaint alleged that M/s Meena Enterprises, based in Payagpur area of Bahraich, fraudulently availed ITC benefits on the GST portal without conducting any real business activity. The firm was also accused of passing on fake ITC to other entities, thereby causing a substantial loss to the government exchequer. During the investigation, the names of the two accused surfaced, following which additional sections were invoked in the case. Acting on credible inputs, the SIT team arrested Shubham Gupta from Barabanki and brought him to Bahraich, while Nek Alam was also taken into custody. Police revealed that the accused had meticulously set up multiple non-existent firms using forged documents. Through these bogus entities, they showed fake high-value transactions and generated fraudulent invoices without any actual supply of goods or services. The scheme enabled them to illegally claim and transfer ITC, creating a complex web of paper transactions to evade GST. Officials stated that the fraudulent activities led to a total estimated loss of Rs.10,23,66,540 to the government. The accused ran Meena Enterprises, Chhail Traders and Ratan Enterprises as part of the racket. Police seized fake bills, firm documents, a laptop, two mobiles, Aadhaar, PAN, driving licence, six ATM cards and a motorcycle. Both were produced in court, and police remand is being sought....