SIT continues questioning Tollywood artistes in drug case
hyderabad — Telangana’s Prohibition and Excise authorities on Tuesday continued questioning of Telugu film industry personalities in connection with the Hyderabad drug racket case.
On Tuesday, art director Dharma Rao appeared before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the racket.
SIT officials began questioning him at around 10.30am, at Abkari Bhavan, the office of Prohibition and Excise Department.
Chinna is the sixth artist from Tollywood to be questioned in the case. SIT officials on Monday grilled actor P. Navdeep for over 11 hours.
The investigating team has summoned 12 celebrities for questioning as their contact numbers were found in the call data of Calvin Mascrenhas, the kingpin of the racket. Actors Tarun and Subbaraju, director Puri Jagannadh and cinematographer Shyam K. Naidu were interrogated last week.
Actors Ravi Teja and Nandu, actresses Charmme Kaur and Mumaith Khan are among the other celebrities who will be questioned this week.
However, the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday directed Telangana excise authorities probing the drug racket not to compel Charmme to give her blood, nail and hair samples for analysis.
The court order came on Charmme’s petition a day before she is to appear before the SIT for questioning.
However, the court dismissed Charmme’s plea to direct SIT to question her in the presence of her lawyer.
The actress’ lawyer Vishnuvardhan Reddy told reporters that the court also directed officials to quiz her between 10 am and 5pm. It observed that if necessary the officials may call her again for questioning.
The SIT has so far registered seven cases and arrested 19 accused. It has questioned a total of 28 people.
The case took a new turn on Monday when SIT arrested manager of leading actress Kajal Aggarwal.
Puttkar Ronson Joseph was arrested from his house in Manikonda here. Narcotic substances were recovered from his possession.
The department has so far recovered 3,000 units of LSD, 105 grams of MDMA, 45 grams of cocaine and other narcotic and psychotropic substance.
Kajal Aggarwal on Tuesday said she was shocked by the arrest of her manager in connection with a drug racket.Kajal said in a post on the social media that she doesn’t support any activity which is detrimental to the society.
“I am absolutely shocked and appalled about this whole incident with Ronnie. I’m in zero support of this and any behavior that is detrimental to the hygiene of our society.
“Having said that, just because I care for people who run errands for me does not imply that I can control their personal lives/choices,” Kajal said in the statement on Twitter. —