The Income Tax department Wednesday carried out a series of raids at houses of prominent Tamil film personalities including music composer A.R. Rahman.

Department sources confirmed that composer Rahman's house in Kodambakkam, the film city in Chennai, was being searched.

Little information was being given to the media waiting outside the fortress-like house with its 15-ft high walls.

Raids were also carried out at the homes of leading actors Vijay and Vikram and actresses Trisha and Sneha.

Tax sleuths also raided the houses of two other music directors, Ilayaraja's son Yuvan Sankar Raja and Harris Jayaraj.

The homes of Shankar, director of the hugely successful film "Anniyan", and producer Oscar Ravichandran were also searched by the IT officials.

The raids began at about 8.a.m. Wednesday in what appeared to be an attempt to uncover black money in the Tamil film industry.

Officials were tight-lipped about the reason for the raids and did not disclose any findings in the ongoing exercise.