Raj Kundra, husband of film star Shilpa Shetty, has been arrested by the Mumbai Police’s crime branch as the key person in a group of people engaged in luring young people in Mumbai promising film and television roles and then pushing them to make porn.
Raj Kundra, along with 11 other people will face the law for their alleged involvement in creating pornographic films and publishing them through apps, police said.
Booked under sections 420 (cheating), 34 (common intention), 292 and 293 (related to obscene and indecent advertisements and displays) of IPC besides relevant sections of the IT act and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act., Raj Kundra is facing a grim future ahead of him.
Raj was summoned to appear before Mumbai Police’s Crime Branch and was later arrested. As a procedural requirement he also underwent medical examination at JJ Hospital.
According to the Mumbai Police commissioner the force has enough evidence against Raj Kundra’s involvement in the case as a key conspirator.
“There was a case registered with the Crime Branch Mumbai in Feb 2021 about the creation of pornographic films and publishing them through some Apps. We’ve arrested Mr Raj Kundra in this case on 19/7/21 as he appears to be the key conspirator of this. We have sufficient evidence regarding this,” the commissioner said in a statement.
In February this year, a woman had approached the Mumbai Police against Raj Kundra and his alleged involvement in luring young women and men on the pretext of offering roles into web series and short films. Later the wanna be actors were allegedly forced to act in a pornographic film instead.
Mumbai Police had arrested five people in the case which has led to Kundra’s arrest. The arrested include Yasmin Rowa Khan, the alleged producer-director, Monu Sharma the alleged cameraman, Pratibha Nalawade as the alleged creative director along with Arish Shaikh and Bhanu Thakur as the alleged stars of the porn movies the group was producing.
In March this year Chennai crime branch had arrived in Mumbai seeking custody of the porn racket case accused Yasmin Rowa Khan and her husband.
#gehanavasisth #rajkundra #pornography #matter pic.twitter.com/GA4PA4elsv
— GEHANA VASISTH (@GehanaVasisth) July 21, 2021
During the investigations of that matter, it came to light that an alleged amount of Rs 18 lakh was paid through an online transaction into Yasmin Rowa Khan’s bank account.
There have been many complaints of that nature and the authorities are investigation.
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Talking about Raj’s arrest in a case related to the production and streaming of porn films, Poonam Pandey, who has had her own fights with Raj Kundra said that her ‘heart goes out to’ his wife, actor Shilpa Shetty, and their two children.
In an interview with a leading daily, Poonam reacted to the news of Raj’s arrest and said, “At this moment my heart goes out to Shilpa Shetty and her kids. I can’t imagine what she must be going through. So, I refuse to use this opportunity to highlight my trauma.”
“The only thing I’ll add is that I have filed a police complaint in 2019 against Raj Kundra and subsequently registered a case at the honourable high court of Bombay against him for fraud and theft. This matter is sub judice, hence I would prefer to limit my statements. Also, I have full faith in our police & the judicial process,” she added.
On the other hand, actress Gehana Vasisth who is out on bail in the same case, has reacted to Raj Kundra’s arrest in an emotional video uploaded by ETimes. In ther video she says, “I have a small request for everyone to not compare bold and erotica cinema with porn. Raj Kundra and I have been arrested for the same case, we have the same investigation going on. I know what was being made under Kundra’s company. I have worked as a heroine in 3 films produced for Raj Kundra’s app. He never forced me to do anything, I was paid according to the work I did and deserved. I had no issues with the work or the payment I received. I had no objections to the content, nor did I have any bad experience of working on the sets. Those films were released very well and neither of those films were porn movies. Those who have a doubt can use Google search and look for those films and my other work. None of it can be classified as porn.”
The Police officials say they will investigate Raj Kundra’s involvement in the current as well as the previous case which had been reported in February this year.
“We will probe the Raj Kundra case and find out if there is any link between this and pornography cases which we had registered earlier,” the police official said.