However, producers of Baahubali, Prasad Devineni and Shobu Yarlagadda couldn’t escape so easily. Yes, on Friday, Income Tax department officials raided the Banjara Hills Office of Arka Mediaworks.
However, sources said that the team conducted raids in around 30 locations related to Shobu and Prasad, including their homes and relatives’ homes in Andhra Pradesh. Moreover, they conducted raid even at a distributor’s home.
The team found around Rs 70 crores (Banned Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes) after investigating all the locations. Moreover, the officials seized key documents from the producers’ offices.
“Baahubali” had become highly successful and it collected around Rs 650 crores. Now, the 2nd part is all set to be released next year in the month of April. The expected production cost is around Rs 250 crores.
A Tollywood Producer stated that although Telugu Film Industry was always watched upon by IT officials, this was indeed a surprise raid. Sources said;
“The selling of rights for Baahubali-2 is huge. As per a source, the Nizam area rights were sold for Rs 50 crore to Mr Sunil Narang of Global Cinema. Other areas also did roaring business, double of Baahubali-1. Apart from the huge business of the second part, the producers are minting money from part-1 of the movie. The television rights were sold for a big amount. It seems the I-T officials want to check those accounts.”
More raids are expected on people in Tollywood, say sources. Let us see what happens next.
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