Mumbai, September 16:
Actress Shilpa Shetty has told the Mumbai Police she was too busy with her work to know what her husband Raj Kundra was up to. Her statement is part of the over 1,400-page chargesheet filed by the Mumbai Police against Kundra and the IT head of his company Viaan industries, Ryan Thorpe in the porn racket case. The chargesheet also details the evidence against two other wanted accused in the case, Yash Thakur and Sandeep Bakshi.
Shetty said, “Kundra started Viaan industries Limited in 2015 and I was one of the directors till 2020 when I resigned due to personal reasons.”
“I am not aware about the Hotshots or Bollyfame apps. I was too busy with my own work and hence, not aware about what Kundra was up to,” she added.
The police has claimed in the chargesheet that Kundra used the Mumbai office of Viaan Industries to run the day-to-day operations of the porn racket.
The Mumbai Police has said Hotshots and Bollyfame were some of the applications through which pornographic content was uploaded online by the accused.
Apart from Shetty, there are statements of 42 more witnesses, some of them recorded before a magistrate, to prove the case against Kundra and Thorpe.
So far, 11 persons have been arrested by the Mumbai police in the case that was busted after a raid at a bungalow in Madh Island in February this year. The police had already filed a chargesheet against nine persons in April this year, and the rest have been charged in the supplementary chargesheet filed on Wednesday.
The Mumbai police had arrested Kundra and Thorpe on July 19.
An officer said in the chargesheet that they have submitted evidence to show that Kundra, Thorpe, wanted accused Yash Thakur alias Arvind Kumar Shrivastava, a Singapore resident, and Sandeep Bakshi, brother-in-law of Kundra who is based in the UK, were involved in running portals where pornographic content was uploaded.
