Actor Sonu Sood‘s offices in Mumbai and Lucknow were raided by officials of the Income Tax depatment on Wednesday, NDTV reported.
According to the report, the income tax officers arrived at the actor’s premises on Wednesday afternoon and carried out a “survey” in Sood’s Mumbai residence on Thursday as well.
“A recent deal between Sonu Sood’s company and a Lucknow-based real estate firm is under the scanner. The survey operation has been initiated on allegations of tax evasion on this deal,” sources in the Income Tax department claimed.
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Following this, people across the country have been linking the raid to Sood’s recent connection with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s party Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Recently, Kejriwal had announced that Sood would be the brand ambassador of the Delhi government’s ‘Desh Ke Mentor’ (country’s mentor) programme.
Clarifying the allegations, Asif Bhamla, BJP spokesman, said to NDTV, “There is no relation to that (the Kejriwal meeting). Any personality can meet anyone. It is just a search, not a raid. It’s on a tipoff. It’s not necessary that the person who heads the charity has done anything wrong… It must be something at the lower level. Income Tax is an independent department, which has its own protocol. It is doing its job.”
Following the incident, Kejriwal tweeted: “There are millions of difficulties on the way to truth, but truth always wins. @SonuSood With ji, there are prayers of lakhs of families of India who got Sonu ji’s support in difficult times.”
Sood who has predominantly worked in Hindi, Telugu, and Tamil films, has been labelled as the ‘messiah’ for his philanthropic work since the pandemic began in March 2020. He began by helping thousands of migrant labours who were walking to their home towns to reach their destination when a sudden nation wide lockdown was announced. He has been continuing his work through his charity the Sood Foundation, by providing technology to students for online classes, organising oxygen cylinders during a time of extreme shortage during the second wave and organising a large team of volunteers to aid patients seeking hospital beds.