JP raided on eve of Refugee premiere

BOLLYWOOD biggie JP Dutta was raided by the income-tax authorities on Thursday, a day before the release of his much-awaited new film, Refugee while the distributor of the film, superstar Ajay Devgan, was ‘surveyed’.

Top tax officials were tight-lipped about the raid conducted at Dutta’s Juhu premises and no details were available on whether or not anything incriminating was found.

The timing of the raid has, however, surprised Bollywood. Dutta directed Border, one of last year’s biggest hits of Bollywood and so there has been a lot of excitement around the release of Refugee, also because it introduces star-children Abhishek Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor. Sources in IT and Bollywood said this was perhaps the first instance of a raid on the eve of a big-banner release.

The raid and the survey happened even as Dutta and Devgan were in the middle of preparations for a star-powered special screening of the film at Liberty in South Mumbai. Both of them attended the premiere.

The raid comes four days after police shot dead the hitman of underworld don Abu Salem near his Juhu office on Saturday evening.

A special squad of the crime branch had laid a trap at Dutta’s office. Around 5 pm two gangsters astride on a Yamaha motorcycle were spotted near the Sai Baba Tower and when the police tried to intercept them, they fired four rounds in a bid to escape. Police returned fire and hit the pillion rider. His unidentified associate managed to flee from the spot leaving the motorcycle and the wounded hitman who later died in hospital.