Shilpa Shetty |Pornography case
Shilpa Shetty records statement with police in porn case involving husband Raj Kundra
Mumbai/IBNS: Actor Shilpa Shetty's statement has been recorded by the Mumbai Police in connection with the pornographic film case linked to her husband and businessman Raj Kundra, media reports said.
The police are probing whether Shetty was aware of her husband's alleged link with the pornographic films business, reports said.
Kundra's company Viaan was linked to the financial transactions to another company, Kernin, that came up during investigations which uploaded the porn films.
Kundra has been sent to police custody till July 27.
He was arrested along with his aide Ryan Thorpe. Police told the court that they have seized a huge cache of pornographic images and videos- around 48 TB, according to an NDTV report.
Police recovered 51 clips from the laptop seized, the report said, adding that 31 of them were those streamed on Hotshots app.
Police are investigating if the clips were uploaded on the internet, it said.
The investigators told the court that some data was deleted from other computers a day after Kundra was arrested, and it would take one more day to recover those.
They said Kundra was working on a "Plan B" after Apple and Google app stores disabled "Hotshots" from their platforms for streaming pornographic content.
Kundra was working on another network "Bolifem" to have it listed on Google and Apple app stores to stream the illicit content through the new app.
Further, police have found transactions between a Yes Bank account in Raj Kundra's name to one in the United Bank of Africa. They suspect that the money from the sale of pornographic content was used for online betting and so far Rs 7.5 crore has been seized.
Kundra's lawyer Abad Ponda argued that the content seized can come under Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code that pertains to "lascivious" material, he said, adding "no further custody is needed", said the report.
He contended Kundra cannot be charged under Section 67 of the IT Act - for which bail is not allowed, as similar content is available on OTT platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Kundra was arrested on Monday after Umesh Kamat, his former assistant, named him. Thorpe was arrested the next day. Till now 11 people have been arrested so far.
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