A day after a Mumbai court granted bail to Raj Kundra in connection with an illicit films case, Mumbai Police Crime Branch on Tuesday said it found 119 adult videos from the businessman’s mobile phone and laptop which he was planning to sell for Rs 9 crore.
The police said the Mumbai Police Crime Branch has issued Look Out Circular against absconding accused Yash Thakur alias Arvind Srivastava and Pradeep Bakshi, who is an aide of Raj Kundra.
This comes on a day when Kundra walked out of the Arthur Road Jail in central Mumbai where he was lodged under judicial custody for the past two months. A magistrate court in Mumbai had on Monday allowed Kundra’s bail application on furnishing a bond of Rs 50,000.
Kundra’s associate and co-accused Ryan Thorpe, who was arrested along with him on July 19, was also granted bail by the court in the case pertaining to alleged creation of adult films and publishing them through some apps.
Kundra, the husband of Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty, was arrested by the Mumbai police’s crime branch after being booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Information Technology Act and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act.
Kundra moved a bail plea before the metropolitan magistrate court on Saturday last, days after the police filed a supplementary charge-sheet in the case. In the plea, filed through advocate Prashant Patil, Kundra claimed there was not even an iota of evidence till date with the prosecution that would connect the app ‘Hotshots’, used in the alleged porn films racket, with an offence under law.
As per the probe agency, the ‘Hotshots’ app was being used by accused persons for uploading and streaming obscene content. The businessman claimed there was no evidence of him being “actively” involved in creation of alleged questionable porn content.
Kundra alleged he has been falsely implicated, was not even named in the FIR and has been dragged by the respondent (police) in the case. The businessman claimed in the plea that he is being made a “scapegoat” for reasons best known to investigators.
There is not a single allegation in the entire supplementary charge-sheet against Kundra, Patil submitted before the court. Contents of the complaint in the case do not disclose any prima facie offence against the businessman, he said.
The public prosecutor opposed Kundra’s application, saying just because the charge-sheet has been filed, it does not imply bail is to be granted to the accused.