A day after the Income Tax department raided offices and residences of Bollywood actress Taapsee Pannu and directors Anurag Kashyap and Vikas Bahl, the investigation is still going on the second day with the department probing and associated talent management company with the celebrities.
KRI Entertainment, the talent management company under the radar, reportedly manages several Bollywood celebrities, including Taapsee. The inquiry hints that KRI Entertainment is connected with Kashyap’s production house Phantom Films. According to the investigation, the I-T department is inspecting transactions of these companies relating to deals and projects they have done between 2011 to 2018 to uncover errors and record of tax evasion.
The searches were conducted around 30 sites in Mumbai and Pune, which included searches at Reliance Entertainment group CEO Shibhasish Sarkar and certain executives of other talent management companies such as KWAN and Exceed.
Director-producer Vikramaditya Motwane and producer-distributor Madhu Mantena who were major investors in Phantom films were also questioned, apart from Vikas Bahl and Anurag Kashyap.
It is to be noted that Phantom Films was dissolved in 2018.
While KWAN’s clientele includes Deepika Padukone, Exceed handles the portfolios of Saif Ali Khan and Sonakshi Sinha, among others.
Both Anurag Kashyap and Taapsee are outspoken about things happening in the country and majorly against the ruling government.
Meanwhile, the IT raids have been condemned by the opposition and several other celebrities like Swara Bhaskar and Anubhav Sinha have come out in support of them.
“Appreciation tweet for @anuragkashyap72 who has been a cinematic trailblazer, a teacher and mentor of talent and a man with rare candour and a brave heart! More power to you Anurag… Appreciation tweet for @taapsee who is an amazing girl with courage and conviction that is rare to see nowadays. Stand strong warrior!” Bhaskar tweeted.
“Kashyap and Taapsee I love you both. Just,” tweeted Sinha, a close friend of Kashyap and who worked with Pannu in ‘Thappad’.