Mumbai crime branch files charge sheet against Raj Kundra in porn case
The 1,467-page charge sheet by Mumbai crime branch against Raj Kundra in the porn case contains statements of 43 witnesses, including statements of five persons recorded under section 164 Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) before metropolitan magistrates
The Mumbai crime branch on Wednesday filed a second charge sheet against businessman Ripu Sudan aka Raj Kundra and Ryan Thorpe, the IT head of his company Viaan Enterprises, and two wanted accused, in connection with the pornographic film racket.
The 1,467-page charge sheet contains statements of 43 witnesses, including statements of five persons recorded under section 164 Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) before metropolitan magistrates.
Property cell of the crime branch had, in April 2021, filed the first charge sheet of 3,529 pages against nine accused arrested earlier in the case.
The investigation was continued to find out the mastermind behind the porn racket and after recording statements of several witnesses and on basis of evidence, the crime branch raided Kundra’s office in Andheri (West) and allegedly seized several electronic gadgets, storage devices and porn clips, related to the racket. Based on the evidence recovered from Kundra’s office, the property cell arrested Kundra and his IT head Thorpe on July 19.
The second charge sheet also names two wanted accused —Yash Thakur alias Arvind Shrivastava who is reportedly staying in Singapore, and Kundra’s brother-in-law Pardeep Bakshi, who is in London. The crime branch claimed that Yash Thakur’s name cropped up during interrogation of an accused Tanveer Hashmi who allegedly provided porn content for his Nuefliks app. Police also found chat records and bank transactions between Thakur and Hashmi.
Police claimed that from the pornographic films Kundra had allegedly earned over $158,057 ( ₹1.17 crore), from subscribers of his Hotshots app on Apple’s App Store between August and December 2020.
Hotshots app was developed for running a pornographic film racket and Kundra controlled its entire operation through WhatsApp groups. Kundra’s manager Umesh Kamat who was also arrested earlier, bought and sent those videos to the UK where they were uploaded on Hotshots app. It appears that till now Kundra has made around 100 porn movies, which were uploaded, and more than 20 lakh subscribers have paid an amount to watch porn on his app. The police also claimed that there are several suspicious monetary transfers in Kundra’s bank account, which has been pointing to his role in the porn racket.
The incident came to light after the Property cell raided a bungalow in the Madh area in Malwani and found two women engaged in the shooting of a pornographic film. Police claimed to have rescued a young woman, who was allegedly lured into acting in a short film and forced to perform sex on camera.