Horse, yes! Romance? Neigh!

Interestingly, Sukesh is married to actress Leena Maria Paul, who was seen two films — the 2013-film Madras Café with John Abraham, in which she played the role of a Tamil rebel and in a 2013-Tamil film Biriyani, in which she had a small role. Leena apparently functions like Sukesh’s secretary sometimes, having even fixed up for Jacqueline to visit him in Chennai and Hyderabad, among other places.

‘SLANDEROUS’, SCREAM THE SPOKESPERSONS

While Jacqueline’s spokespersons had earlier, in no less terms, claimed the story of a romantic liaison as wrong and the entire episode to be slander, Nora’s spokesperson also circulated a statement to the media, requesting them not to indulge in slander.

Interestingly, Sukesh’s lawyer

Anant Malik has claimed that his client and Jacqueline were in a romantic relationship and that even Nora Fatehi was gifted a BMW car by Sukesh. Nora is, however, claiming to be a victim.

“On behalf of Nora Fatehi, we would like to clarify the various conjectures floating around amongst the media. Nora Fatehi has been the victim around the case and being a witness, she is co-operating and helping the officers in the investigation.

We would like to make it very clear that she has not been a part of any money laundering activity, she does not know or have any personal connection with the accused and has been called by ED to strictly help with the investigation. We would request the media to refrain from slandering her name and making any statements before any official information is released [sic],” read the statement.

JACQUELINE’S TOURS IN JEOPARDY

Given her situation, the actress who was slated to travel to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia as part of the Dabangg tour later this month may not be able to do so. She won’t be able to leave the country for the tour and may have to be replaced as the Look Out Circular (LOC) doesn’t permit her until she’s through with all her responses to claims made by Sukesh and as presented in ED’s charge sheet.

Jacqueline was first stopped from flying out of India on the weekend. She’s been further asked to come to New Delhi to depose before the ED.

USING STAR POWER

Sources in the ED say that it’s now increasingly becoming a lot more evident that Sukesh was using his proximity to these actresses to get many more deals done. “Sukesh flaunted these pictures with Jacqueline and photographs with other Bollywood stars to tell people what an influential person he was and what he could do for them. These pictures of Jacqueline are not random selfies that anyone can get when they stand next to a star. That is one reason Sukesh was quite successful in conning people and later extorting money out of them,” say sources.

NEXT IN LINE

The name of another very big star from Bollywood is being mentioned in connection with the case, but the ED officials don’t want to jump the gun by announcing the name now as they’re still flushing out more details.