Taapsee Pannu responds to IT raids, condemns alleged reports of Rs 5 crore receipts: Have done nothing illegal

Taapsee Pannu has responded to the raids by the Income Tax Department on 3 March in a new interview, saying that she never expected it to happen to her or her family. Pannu begins with how the IT raid was very “out of the blue for them”. She and her family didn’t see it coming at all and they were ‘perturbed.’ However the actor adds that she had nothing to fear because she has done “nothing wrong”. She further adds she is well aware of the cost one has to pay for being a public figure. “If there a human error, I will pay up for it or whatever I am supposed to do. But I am not a criminal. I have not done anything illegal. So, I am not scared of the consequences.” The Thappad actor also condemned a section of media that claimed that the actor received Rs 5 crore cash payment. In response to it, Taapsee laughed and told The Quint, “I want to know where are these Rs 5 crore? I have not been offered that amount for anything in my life so far. I will frame the receipt for myself.” Pannu’s interview comes a day after she shared a series of tweets expressing her stance over the raid. Pannu sarcastically wrote on Twitter the raid took place to search “the keys of the “alleged” bungalow that I apparently own in Paris” and of the 2013 raid that happened “according to our honourable finance minister.” Her tweets arrived a day after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the same persons were raided in 2013 as well, but no issue was made out then as it is being done now. However, she refused to comment on individual cases, stating it’s in the national interest to know if some evasion is happening. On 3 March, the Income Tax Department searched the homes and offices of Pannu and filmmaker Anurag Kashyap as well as his partners who launched the now-shuttered production house Phantom Films. The others searched included some employees of Phantom Films, which was dissolved in 2018, and its then promoters Kashyap, director-producer Vikramaditya Motwane, producer Vikas Bahl and producer-distributor Madhu Mantena. The business transactions of films made under the banner of Phantom Films are also being probed. Kashyap and Pannu, who worked together in the 2018 film Manmarziyaan, are currently filming Dobaara, a thriller. (With inputs from Press Trust of India)