Public prosecutor Aruna Pai on Saturday informed Bombay high court that “51 pornographic films were seized” from two apps by the Mumbai Crime branch. Raj Kundra and Ryan Thorpe were arrested as they had “started deleting WhatsApp group and chats” and hence “destroying evidence” so the police had to arrest them. “Instead of co-operating, they started deleting content from the WhatsApp groups and chats. Thus, they started destroying evidence. When an accused starts destroying evidence the investigating authorities cannot be mute spectators, they have to prevent them. Therefore in order to prevent them, they were arrested,” Pai told the Bombay high court on Saturday.
“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,” added Pai. A bench of Justice A.S. Gadkari refused to pass any order without hearing the prosecution, and after Public Prosecutor Arun Pai assured the court that the police will file its reply, posted the matter for further hearing.
Soon after his arrest, Kundra, through his lawyer Abad Ponda, moved the Bombay HC challenging his arrest and seeking to quash the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s July 20 order and all subsequent orders remanding him to police custody. In his petition before the high court, Kundra – husband of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty – contended that the alleged content does not depict any explicit sexual acts or intercourse but show only material in the form of short films.
The police said that raids on Kundra’s office on July 19 led to recovery of pornographic videos related to the HotShot app, developed by his brother-in-law and UK national Pradeep Bakshi after which he was asked to appear before the Crime Branch vide the notice under Section 41A, but Kundra refused to sign it.
(With inputs from IANS)
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