Mumbai/New Delhi: The Income Tax Department on Wednesday raided premises linked to the filmmakers, including Anurag Kashyap, who launched the now dissolved production house Phantom Films, Reliance Entertainment group CEO Shibhashish Sarkar and Bollywood actor Taapsee Pannu, officials said.
The searches are being carried out in over 30 locations in Mumbai and Pune, officials said. Some executives of celebrity and talent management company KWAN are also being raided.
The action is part of a tax evasion probe against Phantom Films, which was dissolved in 2018, and its then promoters Kashyap, director-producer Vikramaditya Motwane, producer Vikas Bahl and producer-distributor Madhu Mantena, they said.
Sources said some inter-linked transactions between the entities searched are under the scanner of the department and the raids are aimed at gathering more evidence to further probe tax evasion allegations.
Founded in 2011, Phantom Films produced films such as “Lootera”, “Queen”, “Ugly”, “NH 10”, “Masaan” and “Udta Punjab”.
Kashyap later launched a new production company called Good Bad Films while Motwane launched Andolan Films.
The searches against Mantena are also being carried out in context of his links with KWAN, of which he was a co-promoter.
Pannu, 33, has worked in numerous Hindi, Tamil and Telugu movies.
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