Taapsee Pannu: ‘Ready to serve punishment if I have done any wrong’

Actor Taapsee Pannu said she is ready to “serve the punishment” if she has done anything wrong.

Speaking to NDTV after her house was raided by Income Tax (IT) sleuths recently, the actor said she had “nothing to fear” and had no clue why the raids happened. “If I have done something wrong, I will serve the punishment,” she told the media house.

On reports that receipts of ₹5 crore were found at her house, Taapsee said they were all media speculations and that the IT department did not say that this was found at her house.

On March 3, the IT Department conducted raids at the houses of Pannu and filmmaker Anurag Kashyap. Raids were also conducted in the properties of now defunct Phantom Films, which was started by Kashyap and his associates. Besides searching 30 places in Mumbai and Pune for income details of the celebrities, the IT also raided the properties of Reliance Entertainment group CEO Shibhasish Sarkar and some top officials of celebrity and talent management companies KWAN and Exceed.

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“I was wondering who is giving me ₹5 crore. There were stories of me having a bungalow in Paris. I answered all the questions asked by the Income Tax officers. My family and I cooperated with the IT department,” Taapsee told NDTV.

When asked why she was singled out by the IT department, Taapsee said, “There is no way to confirm why I was raided. When IT raids happened, there is no option but to follow procedure.”

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had recently said that Anurag Kashyap and Pannu were raided in 2013 as well, “but no issue was made out then as being done now”.

Taapsee reacted to the Finance Minister’s statement, saying: “It was nice of the Finance Minister to say that it’s a procedure, don’t sensationalise it.”