HYDERABAD: Sending shockwaves in Tollywood, Income Tax officials on Friday swooped down on the offices and houses of producers of Prabhas-starrer ‘Bahubali’ movie which created new recods in terms of collections in Tollywood and also overseas. According to sources in the department, the officials have raided Arka media office at Jubilee Hills and also the houses of producers Prasad Devineni and Shobhu Yarlagadda simultaneously.
Though the initial reports linked the raids with crackdown on black money, sources in the IT department said the sale of rights of the sequel to be released worldwide in April and distribution rights for several hundred crores, could be the reason behind the raids.
The officials have swung into action on Friday afternoon and the raids are expected to continue on Saturday also.
‘Bahubali:The Beginning,’ which was released in 2015, has collected over `650 crore at the international box office, and the second part of the film, ‘Bahubali: The Conclusion’ is set to hit the theatrés across the globe on April 28 next.
The movie also received National Award for best film in 2015.
As the movie release is getting nearer, producers of the movie have reportedly sold the rights of the second part to distributors.
‘‘The raids were in wake of these reports,’’ an official said. IT officials were still in the process of verifying the documents recovered from the offices of the producers.
Meanwhile, producer and director Tammareddy Bharadwaja reportedly slammed the IT raids.