Kannada actress held in drug case
BENGALURU: The Central Crime Branch of Bangalore police arrested Kannada actress Ragini Dwivedi in connection to an ongoing probe into a drug case following a huge haul of marijuana in late August. An FIR has been registered in the Cottonpet police station and the actress is likely to be produced before a magistrate. Earlier in the day, police raided her residence.
The case is related to another one involving a haul of MDMA on August 20 in the state, which lead the police to start investigating personalities from the Kannada film industry. Some arrests have been made in that case too.
The CCB on Wednesday issued a notice to the actress to appear before it for investigations on Thursday, but the actress sent a team of lawyers who had requested time till Monday. CCB police responded by raiding her residence after
obtaining a warrant on Friday.
Ragini was detained for questioning and arrested after seven hours of sustained interrogation. Her request for anticipatory bail is pending before the sessions court which has posted it for hearing on September 7.
Speaking to reporters, Bangalore Commissioner of Police Kamal Pant said the raid was
conducted based on credible information provided by two people Ravishankar and Rahul, arrested for involvement in the drug trade. The investigations began after the police seized a truck carrying 204 kg of marijuana on 27 August which lead them to Ravishankar and Rahul.
While Ravishankar is a government employee working with
RTO (regional transport office) and a close friend of Ragini’s , Rahul is a real estate developer said to be close to another actress Sanjana Galrani. Pant did not specify whether any other personalities would be called for investigation or arrested. “You have only seen the trailer, wait for the full movie,” he said.
Both Ravishankar and Rahul have confessed to not only using but procuring drugs and selling them to celebrities. Pant said, “They have told us who used to supply them and we are investigating.”
Karnataka home minister Basvaraja Bommai said earlier on Friday that the probe into the drug racket in the state would continue till full details emerged. “Our investigations indicate deeper links which are being probed and we cannot reveal all information at this stage.”
Tourism minister C T Ravi said that the government would come down hard on those dealing in illegal drugs.