Dil Raju
Credit: X/@sudhakarudumula
Hyderabad: Sleuths of the Income Tax department raided locations belonging to Tollywood's top producer, Dil Raju, and also makers of Pushpa franchise, Mythri Movie Makers. Dil Raju, whose original name is Venkata Ramana Reddy, has been recently appointed as chairman of Telangana Film Development Corporation, a Telangana government body.
He acted as a bridge between Tollywood and Revanth Reddy government during the recent Pushpa screening stampede incident.
The I-T teams have conducted searches at eight locations in Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills on Tuesday. Raju was also the producer of Game Changer and Sankranthiki Vasthunnam, movies that were released this Sankranthi season. He also served as the distributor for another Sankranthi release, Daaku Maharaj, starring Balakrishna. On suspicion of tax evasion, I-T teams raided Dil Raju's premises.
Led by Naveen Yerneni and Yalamanchali Ravi Shankar, Mythri Movie Makers made two parts of Allu Arjun starrer Pushpa. Box office reports say that Pushpa 2: The Rule, which was released as a pan-India movie, earned around Rs 1,850 crore so far.