I-T finds crorepatis among bar girls

TNN / Sep 1, 2005, 12:42 IST

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Tarannum Zafar Khan had a bungalow near Lokhandwala , a flat, a Mhada tenement, a commercial establishment and a million rupees car.

The Income-Tax raid on Monday on the Lokhandwala bungalow of bar-dancer Khan has yielded more than what the officials were looking for; the 20-something was an investor in cricket betting and, in all probability, had links with bookies and the topnotch Sri Lankan cricketer.
The team seized Rs 22 lakh and jewellery worth Rs 9 lakh from her bungalow. The bungalow, which she tried to pass off as being worth only Rs 25 lakh, would easily cost Rs 1 crore, I-T chief commissioner H Tulsyan said.
All this is a far cry from the life Tannu (she��s called that at home) led a decade back. She used to sleep in a 100-square-foot rented room at Andheri��s Adarsh Nagar and worked at the Jharna Beer Bar in Malad. Life, of course, changed when she joined Deepa in Vile Parle.
The department is now in touch with other agencies, including the...

...police, to find out more details of her betting activities. An SMS message was the evidence that the investigators were using to nail her, officials added.
Khan offered up Rs 1.10 crore immediately after the raids but investigations would continue, officials said, adding they were also probing whether she had been gifted the house by a diamond-dealer.
The raids, however, have changed the way things were going at the plush Tanishq bungalow No. 63 on Andheri-Versova Road. The family has now stopped using the front entrance and the silver-coloured sedan has not moved an inch since the I-T officials came visiting.
Another bar girl, Shaheen Khan, was also raided after information gleaned from a maintenance employee of Jaslok Hospital. This employee, Ishwarchand Gandhi, was raided last month and an undisclosed income of Rs 3 crore was found. This raid revealed that he was spending a lot of money on the city��s dancing bars. Officials then raided Shaheen and found Rs 8.5 lakh.

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