The Income Tax Department today swooped down on the Tamil film industry, raiding the residences of some top names, including music director A R Rehman. Searches were also conducted on the residences of some of today’s hottest stars—Vikram, Vijay, Surya, Silambarasan, Trisha and Sneha. Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Santosh Datta, said the raids were part of ‘‘an ongoing process to unearth black money’’. He added that IT officials seized unaccounted money worth Rs 1 crore and fixed deposit receipts from the houses of 19 people. Datta said cash worth Rs 6 crore, ‘‘not yet corroborated’’, were also seized and two lockers with cash and jewelry ‘‘not evaluated’’ sealed. ‘‘We acted on some tip-offs. We have been gathering intelligence for the past two months based on which the searches were planned,’’ said Datta. Among the popular music directors, besides Rehman, houses of Yuvan Sanka Raraja, son of music maestro Ilyaraja, and Harris Jeyaraj were also raided. The houses of some film directors, including fathers of some leading stars and film producers and financiers were also searched. ‘‘This is a clear signal not only to the film industry but also segments that there should be voluntary tax compliance,’’ warned Datta.
