Raj Kundra Planned To Make His Porn Business As Big As Bollywood: Mumbai Police Sources

Shilpa Shetty Kundra’s husband Raj Kundra is behind the bars on charges of making pornographic content and publishing. Mumbai Police accessed some electronic evidence which hints that Raj Kundra believed that live streaming of sexual acts was the future. Read On

Mumbai: Actor Shilpa Shetty Kundra’s husband Raj Kundra is behind the bars on charges of making pornographic content and publishing. Mumbai Police is probing the case and Raj Kundra’s involvement in the same. Now, as per Times Now report, the police have accessed some electronic evidence which hints that Raj Kundra believed that live streaming of sexual acts was the future and he planned to make his porn business as big as Bollywood.

Earlier, Mumbai police said in a statement that Raj Kundra and his brother-in-law Pradeep Bakshi are the alleged masterminds of an international porn films racket perpetrated through their content production companies based in India and the United Kingdom. Raj Kundra is the owner of Viaan Industries, jointly promoted by the couple, while Bakshi — a British citizen, who is married to Kundra’s sister — is the Chairman of Kenrin, London. Mumbai’s Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) Milind Bharambe said that the two companies had a mobile app called ‘HotShots Digital Entertainment’, developed by Kenrin.

The HotShots app is described as the “world’s first 18+ app” showcasing some of the hottest models and celebs globally in exclusive photos, short films, and hot videos — implying soft-to-hard porn.

Bharambe said, “The free to download the app was yanked off by both Apple and Google Playstore for the type of its content. The Mumbai Police have recovered incriminating evidence like several HotShot films, video clips, WhatsApp chats, etc. during the investigation.”

He said that the probe into the entire affair of Kundra started in February 2021 with the Malvani police station blowing the lid off by lodging a complaint about pornographic content being produced and shot at some bungalows in the remote Madh Island and its surroundings in the coastal areas of Malad in north-west Mumbai. The police probe made the startling revelations of how new or aspiring actresses coming to Mumbai from all over India were lured with work offers in short films, web series, and other movies. He added, “They were called for auditions and after selection made to do bold scenes, which went onto semi-nude and then full-nude shoots. Some of them strongly opposed this and had approached the police.”

After making the content, the two companies — Viaan and Kendrin — made them available on mobile apps, offering subscriptions akin to the mainstream OTT platforms, advertise them on social media, all of which were illegal as pornography in any form is banned in India.

Following the investigations by the Malvani Police and later by the Crime Branch-CID and Property Cell, at least 12 arrests have been made so far, including Kundra, his techie associate Ryan J. Tharpe, who were remanded to police custody till July 23 by a Mumbai Magistrate Court. The nine persons arrested earlier include TV actress Gehna Vashisht, 32, Yasmin R. Khan, 40, Monu Joshi, 28, Pratibha Nalavade, 33, M. Atif Ahmed, 24, Dipankar P. Khasnavis, 38, Bhanusurya Thakur, 26, Tanvir Hashmi, 40, and Umesh Kamath, 39.

Authoritative Bollywood and police sources claim that the ongoing probe into the Kundra matter “maybe just the tip of the porno-iceberg” that flourishes in the entertainment circles, aided or abetted by some high-profile ‘model or acting coordinators’ in south Mumbai and western suburbs, with huge stakes involved. “There are dark rumours of even many big celebs, models-actors-actresses being involved in this. ‘Sex-rave parties’ are organised at secret locations in India and abroad where the acts are filmed, and later packaged as ‘hot content’ and sold for millions on various media platforms all over the world,” a top producer told IANS, on condition of anonymity.

With inputs from IANS!