Mumbai: 1,467-page supplementary chargesheet filed in pornography racket case against Raj Kundra, 3 others

The Mumbai police had arrested Kundra and Thorpe on July 19 and the deadline to file the chargesheet in the case was ending later this week. 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 UK, were involved in running portals where pornographic content was uploaded.

An official said that the evidence against Kundra and Thorpe includes porn clips retrieved from the office of Kundra’s Viaan industries, deleted pornographic content from the company’s database, Whatsapp chats and e-mails which show that Kundra was running the day-to-day operations when it came to uploading pornographic content.

The officer added that apart from this, they have also found some unusual money transfers to Kundra’s account which they suspect are linked to the pornography case. Now that the police have filed the chargesheet, Kundra and Thorpe are likely to apply for bail.
While the initial police investigation against the nine persons arrested earlier was mainly linked to shooting of porn films in and around Mumbai, following the chargesheet in that case, the Mumbai police began focusing on the accused who operated portals that were used to upload the content.

The police found that a UK-based company — Kenrin Private Limited — had owned some apps like hotshots, which showed pornographic content. The police later found that Kundra, through his own Mumbai-based Viaan industries, was linked to Kenrin and that he had an important role in running the pornographic portals. In the UK, it was his brother-in-law Bakshi who ran Kenrin and has been named as a wanted accused in the chargesheet.

The second wanted accused, identified as Yash Thakur alias Arvind Kumar Shrivastava who is believed to be based in Singapore, was also allegedly involved in the operations of some apps that uploaded pornographic content. Thakur and Kundra took the services of some mutual contacts such as Rowa Khan, an arrested accused in the case, who arranged for porn movies to be shot in Madh Island and other places in and around the city, an officer said.

The officer added that they are pursuing legal channels such as getting notices issued against the wanted accused who are out of the country so that they could be brought to India to face the law.

An officer added that apart from this case, an SIT had been formed to investigate three other FIRs related to the pornography racket where victims had come forward alleging they were forced into acting in such films. Investigation in those cases is still on, the officer said.