A new scandal has rocked India's Hindi film industry, after the arrest of businessman and husband of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, Raj Kundra, for being named as the ‘key conspirator’ by the police in an ongoing porn racket case.
Explosive WhatsApp chats, purported to be of Kundra and his partner-cum-relative Pradeep Bakshi, who resides in the UK, have been leaked on social media, revealing shocking details of money minted through pornography.
The WhatsApp group called ‘H Accounts’ includes Bakshi, who is the main person accused of running the paid online platform Hotshot from London. People believed to be Raj and Bakshi can be seen discussing the revenue generated through the platform, how much is earned every day, the pending payment of actresses, and much more.
The Mumbai Crime branch acknowledged in a press conference “There was a case registered with Crime Department Mumbai in Feb 2021 in regards to the creation of pornographic movies and publishing of them via some Apps. We’ve arrested Mr. Raj Kundra in this case on 19 July 2021 as he seems to be the main conspirator of this. We now have enough proof concerning this. The investigation is in progress.”
Porn Racket Busted
After receiving several complaints from aspiring actresses who were lured into pornography, Mumbai Police conducted a raid on 5 February 2021 in the Madh Island area of Maharashtra state and arrested five people on suspicion of making pornographic films. During their interrogation, the name of Indian actress–model Gehana Vasisth, aka Vandana Tiwari, name emerged.
After receiving several complaints from aspiring actresses who were lured into pornography, Mumbai Police conducted a raid on 5 February 2021 in the Madh Island area of Maharashtra state and arrested five people on suspicion of making pornographic films. During their interrogation, the name of Indian actress–model Gehana Vasisth, aka Vandana Tiwari, name emerged.
Gehana, who acted in a popular web series "Gandii Baat (Dirty Talk)" was summoned by Mumbai Police, and after being questioned was arrested for her participation in the shooting and uploading of pornographic videos for her website.
“Gehana had shot 87 obscene/porn videos and uploaded them on her website that required a subscription fee of INR 2,000 ($27) to watch. Three of her bank accounts, worth $3.6 million, are under the scanner as the funds were allegedly generated through such subscribers," Mumbai Police official told the Times of India. Police claimed that an actor working for Gehana was paid INR 15,000-20,000 (around $275) per movie.
However, her publicist Flynn Remedios, in a media statement, claimed that she's “innocent” and was “falsely implicated."
“There is a legal difference between erotica or sensual or bold films and hard-core porn. Unfortunately, Mumbai Police, which is otherwise the best police force in the world, has mixed up and clubbed together Gehana's erotica film-making work with hard porn and hard porn makers in India… (sic),” Remedios told Indian media.
Further investigation led to the arrest of Umesh Kamat, who was the former assistant of Kundra, and was helping Gehana upload adult content to the paid online platform "Hotshot", which is reportedly being operated by Bakshi under the UK-based production house Kenrin Manufacturing Home.
When Umesh named Kundra's involvement in the porn case, the latter denied all the allegations and said that he had sold the "Hotshots" app to Bakshi. But the police investigation revealed Kundra's involvement in the finances of the app and also links to the WhatsApp group on which the production, distribution and selling of Hotshots clips were discussed.
As the police continue to investigate the porn racket, a Mumbai court has ordered that Kundra remain in police custody until July 23.