Raj Kundra shot adult films for OTT; Maharashtra Police files a chargesheet

According to the Maharashtra Cyber Police, businessman Raj Kundra, the husband of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, and others have been charged for producing pornographic content in a few upscale hotels and distributing it via OTT platforms for monetary benefit.

According to the Cyber Police's charge-sheet presented to a court last week, Kundra, together with models Sherlyn Chopra and Poonam Pandey, a film producer named Meeta Jhunjhunwala, and a photographer named Raju Dubey, reportedly recorded the obscene or pornographic videos in two upscale suburban hotels.

The Mumbai Police Crime Branch had previously filed separate chargesheets in April and September of 2021 in the high-profile pornographic racket case that surfaced following a raid at a bungalow in Madh Island in February (2021).

According to the Cyber Police, who had filed a case in 2019, Kundra, Director of Armsprime Media Ltd., was involved in creating and disseminating pornographic videos on specific websites.

Suvajit Choudhary, an employee of Banana Prime OTT, and Umesh Kamath, an employee of Kundra, are both mentioned in the 450-page chargesheet for allegedly making the web series "Prem Paglani," which contained pornography and was uploaded to the OTT.

Pandey is also charged with creating her own mobile application, called "The Poonam Pandey," having her films produced, uploaded, and distributed with the aid of Kundra's business.

Kundra was sentenced to two months in custody before being granted release in September 2021 after the high-profile case was disclosed in the sweep by the Mumbai Police Crime Branch, in which several of the accused were apprehended.

The other defendants included Kundra's brother-in-law Pradeep Bakshi, who is based in London and is in charge of the companies Kenrin and HotShot, Ryan Thorpe, the IT director of Kundra's company Viaan Enterprises, and Yash Thakur, also known as Arvind Shrivastav, who is believed to reside in Singapore.

According to its supplementary chargesheet from September 2021, the Mumbai Police had also frozen Thakur's bank accounts with a total of Rs 6.50 crore in them and taken the depositions of 43 witnesses in the case. They had also accused Kundra of producing approximately 100 porn movies.