Actress Taapsee Pannu has tweeted for the first time about the ongoing Income Tax probe over alleged tax evasion. The income tax department on Wednesday conducted raids on Bollywood actress Taapsee Pannu, filmmaker Anurag Kashyap and his partners, who launched the now-shuttered Phantom films. Raids were carried out across 30 locations in Mumbai and Pune, documents and other computer peripherals were recovered from various premises. In the raids, Reliance Entertainment group CEO Shibhasish Sarkar and some executives of celebrity and talent management companies KWAN and Exceed were also covered.
Breaking the silence on IT raids, the actress took to twitter and wrote, “3 days of intense search of 3 things primarily.
1. The keys of the “alleged” bungalow that I apparently own in Paris. Because summer holidays are around the corner.
2. The “alleged” receipt worth 5 crores to frame n keep for future pitching coz I’ve been refused that money before 😡
3. My memory of the 2013 raid that happened with me according to our honourable finance minister 🙏🏼.”
Earlier on Friday Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also tweeted that the same persons were raided in 2013 as well, but it did not lead to an outcry like in the present case. Other political leaders including Rahul Gandhi, and celebrities have responded to the IT raids.
Taapsee’s boyfriend Mathias Boe had also recently urged politician Kiren Rijiju to intervene and tweeted that the IT department is raiding and putting unnecessary stress on her family and parents.
Taapsee Pannu and Anurag Kashyap are known to be outspoken in the range of issues, including governmental policies and have lent voice to several cases, including ongoing farmers’ protest against central laws. Recently, Pannu has criticised celebrities for supporting the government over farmers’ protests. Tax department sources informed that the raids are aimed at gathering the evidence to further probe tax evasion allegations against them and said some inter-linked transactions between the entities searched are under the scanner of the department. The raids attracted a lot of attention on social media platforms but most of Bollywood was quiet. However, Swara Bhaskar and Anubhav Sinha posted tweets appreciating Kashyap and Pannu.
