Income tax officials carry out raids across 23 locations in Karnataka and involve around 200 detectives
IT raids top Kannada actors, producers
The Income Tax (IT) department carried out raids on the residences of four top Kannada film actors and three leading producers on Thursday in a simultaneous state-wide exercise. The raids were carried out across 23 locations in the state and involved around 200 detectives.
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Renowned actors Shivarajkumar and Puneeth Rajkumar, sons of Kannada legend late Rajkumar along with Yash and Sudeep came under the lens of the IT department. Shivarajkumar is the son-in-law of former chief minister, late S Bangarappa. Puneeth Rajkumar shot to fame for his role as a child artist in the Kannada movie 'Bettada Hoovu' and had won a National Film Award. Sudeep, who anchored the Kannada version of 'Big Boss', was hailed for his role in the movie 'Eega' (Makkhi in Hindi) and the multi-lingual 'Baahubali', which broke new grounds in Indian cinema and created records in box office collections.
Other than the actors, three producers of the Kannada film industry were also woken up to the knocks of the IT department officials.
'Rockline' Venkatesh, C R Manohar and Vijay Kiraganduru are the film producers whose residences were raided. Rockline Venkatesh is a relative of Congress MLA and film producer Munirathna. He had co-produced the Hindi movie "Bajrangi Bhaijaan". Vijay is the producer of the latest blockbuster movie "KGF", starring Yash, Srinidhi Shetty and Anant Nag. C R Manohar has his own production house called 'Tanvi Films.' He has produced Kannada and Telugu movies.
His latest movie was 'The Villain', starring Shivarajkumar, Sudeep and Mithun Chakraborty.
The IT officials also told PTI that the raids unearthed a huge cache of cash and gold ornaments in one of these places. A goldsmith was called to evaluate the ornaments.
(with inputs from PTI)
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