Income Tax Raid on Salman's residence - FilmFare

Who or what is most feared in Bollywood? Not the 'shady' financier trying to recover his money from kangaal producers. Not Nana Patekar's temper that threatens to have a dormant volcano spew out flames. Or even Rekha's fickle mind! It is the IT man. The friendly (well, not quite) neighbourhood Income Tax official, who will pay you a visit one fine morning and take away your zindagi bhar ki kamai in cash and kind, if you have not paid your taxes like all good kids. Just when you thought things were falling thanda in Bollywood this year, the IT department decided to stop by and hot things up a bit as seven famous Bollywood personalities were raided on the morning of the 26th of September. Urmila Matondkar, Salman Khan, Amrish Puri, Yash Chopra, Karan Johar, Rani Mukherjee and Aishwarya Rai were amongst the raided. In addition, the premises of a Chartered Accountant with a wide film clientele and that of a raw film manufacturer too were not spared. The raids began at around 8.30 a.m this morning and were carried out at the offices and homes of the stars and directors at 33 venues. Sixty policemen were also on stand-by for duty. The IT department, meanwhile insists that it had "definite information" and that's when they decided to carry out surprise checks. The raids were carried out between the suburbs of Bandra and Andheri in the western suburbs of Mumbai city. While it is still to early to tell whether the officials are satisfied with what they have found, the raids could go on for another three or four days if they are not. Since morning, the raids were supposed to last another few hours and go on into the day. While Salman Khan is shooting in Switzerland, the names of the other personalities who were present while the raids were being carried out were not revealed by the I-T officials. A raid on major film personalities appears to be an annual event in Bollywood, not to mention, the most dreaded. It may be recalled that last year too, IT officials raided famous personalities like Shah Rukh Khan. On the other hand, stars like Juhi and Akshay Kumar are known to be pretty prompt when it comes to filing returns. So much so, that Ms Chawla and Akkibhai was awarded a certificate each for being the most prompt (but definitely not the highest) tax-payer in Bollywood this year. And with Bollywood stars doing their best to stash away their cash, through their various enterprises, kaala or safed the IT is only two steps behind them, as the Def Leppard song goes. Wethinks we know already, who's gonna be on the hot list next year. Any guesses? What was that again? O yes, honesty is the best policy, but then Bollywood is known to be very honest when it comes to dishonesty, no?