Businessman Raj Kundra’s arrest, for creating pornographic films, comes months after a series of allegations leveled against him by one Sagrika Shona Suman, backed by other actresses.
On February 13 this year, Suman, a Mumbai-based actress, alleged that Kundra is the real brain behind the porn racket. “For last one year Hotshots App is referred to as Raj Kundra’s company by everyone in the industry. The money and paper trail may be difficult to find but it definitely exists,” Suman said.
She alleged that she was approached several times by arrested accused Umesh Kamat who openly claimed that he worked for Kundra and that he was the owner of Hotshots and Kenrin, another app hosting porn.
According to several media reports, Kundra had earlier invested Rs 10 crore in Navi Mumbai-based IT firm Armsprime which developed mobile Apps for adult actresses like Sherlyn Chopra, Poonam Pandey, Gehana Vasisth and hundreds others.
The Hotshots set-up which was fronted by a former property agent or broker Umesh Kamat was sourcing soft porn videos from various content developers
Kamat was arrested by the Mumbai police Crime Branch’s Property Cell on 12 Februray for involvement in the Mumbai porn racket, after the police raided a live shoot at Green Park bungalow at Madh Island.
Another former soft-porn actress Sapna Sappu had also seconded Sagrika’s claims that Raj Kundra owned and operated Kenrin and HotShots through his proxy Umesh Kamat who was designated as the CEO.
Sappu has now filed a PIL in the Bombay High Court, claiming that she was a victim of the porn business and got into it because she was broke. She also filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Cell of the Mumbai Police alleging that she was mentally tortured, stalked online and harassed by several persons.
As per a report by Mid-day, arrested accused Umesh Kamat uploaded several porn videos from Kundra’s office and the same is being used as evidence against him.
Meanwhile, lawyers for the several accused arrested by the Crime Branch’s Property Cell in February claimed that no crime is committed as all participants or models are adults and have consented in writing and signed contracts as well as video contracts for their participation in the shoots.
Except for 3-4 disgruntled models whose sole aim is to extort huge amounts from celebs like Kundra, all the other “actors†who allegedly shot the porn videos have no complaints.
Kundra was arrested on Monday by the Mumbai police in a case related to alleged creation of porn and publishing them through some apps, a senior official said.
Kundra, 45, arrested by the Crime Branch after being booked under relevant sections of the IPC and the Information Technology Act, appears to be the key conspirator of the case, he said.
“There was a case registered with the Crime Branch Mumbai in Feb 2021 about 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 evidences regarding this,” the Mumbai Police Commissioner said in a statement.
The case was registered on February 4 at the Malwani police station in suburban Mumbai.
“On that basis, the FIR was registered and the case transferred to the Crime Branch. Earlier also, we had registered cases related to pornography in which an actress and some other persons were made accused,” he said.
“We will probe the Raj Kundra case and find out is there is any link between this and pornography cases which we had registered earlier,” the official said.
According to ndtv.com, Kundra denied any wrongdoing and had sought anticipatory bail in the case.
Kundra was booked under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 34 (common intention), 292 and 293 (related to obscene and indecent advertisements and displays) besides relevant sections of the IT Act and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, he added.
Further investigation was underway, the official added.
Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here
