The income tax department on Thursday conducted raids at various properties belonging to popular actress Tapsee Pannu and director Anurag Kashyap and his associates. It is said that for the second day 168 tax officials have been searching 28 locations in Mumbai and Pune.

Surabhi Ahluwalia, official spokesperson of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has stated "…Evidence of huge suppression of income by the leading film production house compared to the actual box office collections has been unearthed. The company officials have not been able to explain the discrepancy of around Rs 300 crore. Evidence related to manipulation and under-valuation of share transactions of the production house amongst the film directors and shareholders, having tax implication of about Rs 350 crore has been found and is being further investigated,”

He has also added that “Apart from this, non-genuine/bogus expenditure to related concerns by the leading producers/director having tax implication of about Rs 20 crore has been detected. Similar findings have been made in the case of the leading actress also,” Othe reports say that only around rupees 5 Crores unaccounted money was found to be held by Tapsee and that the main focus of the department is on Kashyap and those associated with his former and current film production houses.

It may be recalled that both Anurag Kashyap and Tapsee Pannu have been very vocal in criticizing the current ruling BJP government and their supporters are seeing this as a crackdown on the voices against the rulers.

Tapsee Pannu who has acted in several Bollywood films is currently starring in the Tamil films 'Annabelle Subramaniam' with Vijay Sethupathi and 'Jana Gana Mana' with Jayam Ravi.