Karisma Kapoor hiding her face as she arrives at the E-Wing of Hyderabad Estate with her mother on Friday. July 27: Hyderabad Estate, the huge residential complex of senior central government employees on Napean Sea Road, had an unlikely visitor late Friday evening: Bollywood's current number one heroine Karisma Kapoor.Currently under investigation for alleged tax evasion after the much-publicised raid on her, Karisma's hush-hush visit has serious implications because among the senior officers resident at Hyderabad House are top-rung income-tax officers of Mumbai, directly handling her case.Apart from Karisma, other actors who were raided by the Income-tax department on December 18, 1996, were Madhuri Dixit, Shah Rukh Khan and Sunil Shetty. Other film personalities who were raided, included directors David Dhavan and K C Bokadia, music director Anu Malik and singer Kumar Sanu. In Karisma's case, apparently, the IT was looking into the purchase of a bungalow by her in Lokhandwala.Though these cases were first being investigated by the IT at Mahalaxmi, they were subsequently transferred to the Central Circle, which handles raid cases.On Friday, Express Newsline learned that Karisma was summoned to the IT office at Aykar Bhavan and was later scheduled to drive down to the house of a particular, very highly-placed, IT officer at Hyderabad Estate from there. Since it would have been highly irregular for Karisma to visit the house of those looking into her case, an Express Newsline team of photographers Mahendra Parikh and Vinayaka Prabhu and this reporter, decided to tail her.Newsline had information that Karisma was scheduled to arrive at the IT office at 5.45 pm directly from a shoot at Mehboob Studios. But reached the CGO building (adjacent to Aykar Bhavan, which also has some IT offices), around 6.20 pm. Karisma arrived in her Maroon Maruti (MH-02-M-88), while her mother arrived in a blue Maruti Esteem (MH-02-M-1362). They were accompanied by a male companion. After about an hour in the building, she left in her own car, with by her mother.Photographer Mahendra and this reporter followed the car, but lost it in the evening traffic. But photographer Prabhu, who had left Aykar Bhavan earlier and parked himself, incognito, at Hyderabad Estate, managed to get two frames of her as she got out of her car around 7.20 pm. Her male companion shouted at Vinayaka as soon as he realised what was happening and asked him to hand over the film roll. While the building staff gathered there, Vinayaka sped , even as he saw Karisma running into the entrance to the `E' wing. Interestingly, this very wing of Hyderabad Estate houses at least two top-level income-tax officers which raises the important question: What was the need for Karisma to appear there, specially, coming as she was, directly from Aykar Bhavan.Karisma herself dodged Newsline after Friday evening, not coming on the phone despite repeated attempts. First, her personal secretary Ajit Ghosh said she had left Mehboob Studios (where she was shooting with Yash Chopra) at about 5 pm and that she was due to fly to London later that night. He did not know the time of her flight nor where she could have been in the interregnum. A female voice answered her mobile to say ``madam'' was ``not in this car''. On Saturday, Ghosh again denied knowledge of her contact number.While it is a routine matter for star-struck IT officers to ask for invitations to premiers and even pile on at shootings, visits by stars specially those under investigation for tax evasion to the residences of officers are rare and highly irregular. Karisma's visit to Hyderabad House calls for an investigation by the IT authorities to establish whose house she visited and for what reasons.
