Mumbai: Mumbai police informed the Bombay high court on Saturday that they had no option but to arrest businessman and actor Shilpa Shetty’s husband Raj Kundra – who was arrested in case creation of pornographic films and publishing them through apps – as he started destroying evidence when search was being conducted at his office on July 19.
The police also said that it has seized evidence containing movies with pornographic content and various other material from Kundra’s office.
Public prosecutor Aruna Pai informed the HC that during the search, instead of co-operating, Kundra started destroying evidence. “He started destroying evidence. Police can’t remain mute spectator . hence arrested him to prevent further destruction of evidence,” argued Pai.
Justice AS Gadkari was hearing a petition filed by Kundra challenging his “illegal” arrest in the case saying that the police had not even issued him notice under section 41A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) as required by law before arresting him.
Ryan Thorpe, IT of Kundra’s company, had also filed a petition challenging his arrest stating that he was arrested even though he accepted the police notice.
Pai argued that Kundra and Thorpe are involved in serious crime of production of pornographic content and streaming it on apps. Kundra and Thorpe’s complicity was brought to light by one of his employee, Umesh Kamat, who was arrested earlier in the case. Both, Kamat and Thorpe have been working for Kundra since 2014.
“Police has seized 51 movies under the Hotshot and Bolly Fame app during their search. Besides more material was seized from Kundra’s personal laptop, mobile phone and Storage Area Network (SAN) device,” argued Pai.
During further search in Kundra’s office on July 19, police found an email from Kenrin Pvt Ltd’s owner Pardeep Bakshi with reference to Hotshots App. Bakshi, Kundra’s brother in law, is based in UK and is a wanted accused in this case. “Similarly on the Hotshot app how many customers have subscribed and how many payments are received, the said account details were found. In addition to this in the computers in reference to Hotshot app obscene and bold picturized videos were found,” argued Pai.
Police issued them notice under section 41A of CrPC. Thorpe accepted it but Kundra refused to accept it.
Pai further argued that during the search Kundra and Thorpe refused to co-operate and started deleting evidence in terms of WhatsApp groups and chats. Hence police had not option but to arrest them to prevent them from destroying further evidence, added Pai.
The HC will hear the matter on August 2.
