For the last three consecutive days, the Income Tax department authorities have been conducting raids to target prominent figures and producers in the Telugu film industry.
The department sleuths are surfing through documents, bank statements and foreign transactions of big production houses of Tollywood including Sri Venkateswara Creations headed by Dil Raju, his associates, and producers from Mythri Movie Makers, including Yerneni Naveen and Ravi Shankar Yelamanchili.
Renowned director Sukumar, Mango Media, Abhishek Pictures, AK Entertainments, and several other financial institutions have also faced raids.
“Yet, the IT department authorities could not find anything earthshaking during the raids. Even if there is any mismatch between revenues and tax payments, these producers are capable of paying the penalties, which is not a big deal for them,” sources said.
It is learnt the IT sleuths were so desperate that they even allegedly subjected to physical assaults on the staff members to elicit any crucial hidden information about the black money or any other illegal monetary transactions.
“For silly reasons, some of the IT officers manhandled the staff members, apparently to coerce them to disclose any secret information about the producers,” sources said.
During the raid on one of the production houses on Wednesday, an IT official slapped one of the employees on the pretext of surrendering an unused mobile phone.
While conducting searches, the IT officials collected mobile phones from all staff members. However, one individual, who had two phones, handed over an unused phone to the officials.
“The officials noticed this and demanded the second phone. When the individual refused, the officials reportedly slapped him and confiscated the second phone. He was subjected to punishment until evening,” a source said.
