Sonu Sood is the brand ambassador of the Delhi government mentoring program for school students (Archive)
New Delhi:
The Income Tax department today stormed the offices of actor Sonu Sood in Bombay and a Lucknow company linked to him, sources said.
Prosecutors have arrived this afternoon at the actor’s premises, which receives a daily crowd of people seeking help at his door.
“This is a recent agreement between Sonu Sood’s company and a real estate company based in Lucknow. The investigation into the tax evasion allegations of this agreement was initiated,” said sources in the Income Tax department.
This is not the first time Sonu Sood has been attacked. She was one of the Bollywood personalities attacked in 2012 for alleged tax evasion.
Opposition politicians linked today’s raids to the actor’s recent high-profile meeting with Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, who declared him the ambassador of his government’s mentoring program. to school students in the capital.
The 48-year-old actor has been in movies for the past two decades, but it was his incredible philanthropy during the pandemic that made him a household name.
Sonu Sood won numerous praises for his solidarity work during the pandemic. He organized buses, trains and even flights for desperate migrants to get home after being trapped by last year’s closure. During the second wave of April-May, he organized oxygen for Covid patients and ordered 18 oxygen plants in France that were sent to various states.
He was baptized as the “messiah” for those who addressed him after the system failed them.
When he became a real-life hero, he was acclaimed by politicians across the country. While he has never shown any inclination towards politics, speculation erupted after his meeting with Kejriwal and rumors suggested that the actor could contest next year’s elections in the Punjab as a candidate for the party Aam Aadmi (AAP).
The BJP dismissed the allegation that the raids were driven by the agenda.
“There is no relation to this (the Kejriwal meeting). Any personality can know anyone. It is just a search, not a raid. It is an informational error. It is not necessary that the person directing the “charity has done nothing wrong … It has to be something of a lower level. Income Tax is an independent department, which has its own protocol. It is doing its job,” said Asif Bhamla, spokesman of the BJP.
Kejriwal has tweeted that there were millions of obstacles in the way of the truth, but the truth always prevailed. “Sonu Sood has the blessings of the lakhs of the families, whom he had helped during his difficult times,” he tweeted.
Another AAP leader, Raghav Chaddha, said: “A computer raid against a man as upright as Sonu Sood, someone who has been called a messiah by the lakhs of people, someone who helped the oppressed. If a man like he may be the political object of a well-thought-out witch hunt demonstrates that the current regime is insensitive and politically insecure. “
BJP exile Shiv Sena was also critical of the tax research.
“I’m surprised. The way Sonu Sood has helped lakhs of people, for prosecutors to search their properties … I don’t think he can do anything illegal,” said Anand Dubey, leader of Shiv Sena.