BAREILLY: Fifty two-year-old farmer Ram Sevak fought hard to hold back his tears as he stood in front of the income tax office on Thursday afternoon, with a stoic expression on his face. Sevak, a sturdy-looking man, was interrogated by I-T sleuths inside their Bareilly office for more than an hour. By the time he came out, the 52-year-old was so rattled that he could barely talk. Sevak was summoned to the department after his Jan Dhan account came under scanner for depositing Rs 1.5 lakh recently. The farmer claimed he had sold him crop recently and deposited the sum for his daughter’s wedding.“They are saying that somebody else used my account and I will not be able to use my money. I have been saving cash since June for my daughter’s marriage scheduled next year. I have a son too, but he is studying. I do not know how I will manage without this money. I had to give them in writing about how I got this money,” said a teary-eyed Sevak.Sevak is among hundreds of other Jan Dhan account holders in the district who were served notices by the I-T department on November 26 after they were found depositing more than Rs 10,000 following the demonetisation exercise on November 8.The crackdown by I-T sleuths came days after a TOI report said thousands of Jan Dhan accounts with as little as Re 1 and Rs 2 had suddenly seen a surge in deposits after PM Narendra Modi ’s cash ban move. Reports stated that total balance in Jan Dhan accounts across the country as of November 30 stood at a whopping Rs 74,321.55 crore. Following this, the Reserve Bank of India set a monthly withdrawal limit of Rs 10,000 from all such accounts.Official sources here said that more than 30,000 Jan Dhan account holders from Bareilly region were under scanner, of which over 4,000 have been sent notices and called for “interaction” with I-T officials. A visit to the tax department’s office on Thursday revealed several puzzled customers waiting anxiously for their turn outside.Income tax sleuths, who conceded many who came for the questioning were uneasy, reassured them that the nature of the interaction was formal. “As of now, we are letting them go after they submit an undertaking and produce details of bank statements, income tax returns and other particulars. We do not rule out the fact that many innocent people have been inconvenienced, but we have no other option,” said an official who wished not to be named. Shabbir Ahmed , a 36-year-old fruit vendor from Lakimpur Kheri , was similarly restless as he came out of the office. He had taken a day off from work to travel to the city for the I-T questioning. “It is strange how they questioned me about my money which I had saved for so many months. They doubted my honesty. I am a fruit vendor and we save up for months before putting cash into bank accounts,” Ahmed said.“It was only during a recent withdrawal that I was apprised of the Rs 10,000 per month limit,” said an anxious resident of the old city, Mohammed Iqbal.The clampdown ironically came after PM Modi had announced at a meeting in Moradabad district that Jan Dhan account holders should hold on to the money deposited into their accounts so that a solution could be arrived as to how the poor could benefit from it while the corrupt go to jail.