Model-actress Sagarika Shona Suman has been vocal about the ongoing pornography racket case involving Raj Kundra. In the past few days, the model and actress claimed that Raj Kundra's former PA Umesh Kamat contacted her with an offer for a web show. “He told me I have to audition online, and I was ready for it because during the lockdown all auditions were happening online. When the audition started, he demanded I take my clothes off and that is when I refused to go ahead,” she said.

Sagarika said that there were three people on the other side of the call and one of them was probably Raj Kundra. “I am not sure if he was Raj, his face was covered with a mask, however, the figure and the body structure did look like him. It was Umesh Kamat who asked me to strip and pose nude on the video call.”

Though she didn’t take any action at the time when she was approached, the current stream of events has only encouraged Sagarika to step ahead. “I am already discussing with my lawyers what should be done,” she says. While she is happy about the crackdown and the action against Umesh Kamat and Raj Kundra, she feels that one needs to dig deeper to reach the root. “There are many more people who are making porn films. There are nearly 30 others who are not just victims, but they are a part of the Kundra-led porn racket. These actors are actively promoting and shooting porn and then sharing uncut clips on their Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts, which in turn drive huge traffic to apps like HotShots and HotHits. These people should also be arrested, and their roles probed by the police.”

Following his arrest for alleged involvement in a pornography case, businessman Raj Kundra has been sent to police custody till July 23.

The case is about him luring in aspiring actors and models with a promise to give them a break, and then allegedly forcing women into porn.

It all started in 2019 when the 45-year-old invested in a tech start-up Armsprime Media. They went on to sign Poonam Pandey, Gehana Vasisth and Sherlyn Chopra. Soon, Pandey filed a case against Kundra for theft and Kundra said he is not an investor anymore.

This year, his name cropped up again in connection with the company, leading to his arrest. Vasisth was also arrested in the same case and is out on bail. Her publicist released a statement on her behalf saying, “Police should investigate fully as there are more skeletons in the cupboards of the rich.”

Pandey shares that all her sympathies are with Shilpa and her kids. “I can’t imagine what she must be going through. So, I refuse to use this opportunity to highlight my trauma. The only thing I’ll add is that I had filed a complaint against him and the matter is sub judice,” she said.

Moreover, in a video uploaded by actor-model Sagarika Shona Suman in February, she alleged that she was asked to give her audition via video call where three people, one of them allegedly Kundra, demanded a nude audition from her. Actor Shruti Gera says she was approached in 2018 by a casting director who said Kundra would meet her to discuss his web show. “To imagine that someone like Raj Kundra, Shilpa Shetty’s husband would be doing this. People like him exploit the vulnerability of young females around.”

A college-drop out, Raj Kundra considers his father to be his role model. The latter worked as a bus conductor in London before running small businesses including grocery, post offices and drug stores.

After turning 18, he went to Dubai and later Nepal, from where he sourced pashmina shawls which he sold to famous fashion houses in Britain including Christian Dior and Josephs. He made €20 million in the first year.

Later, he went into diamond trading in Dubai, dabbled in precious metals, construction, mining, green renewable energy projects and financed Hindi films.

A year after his divorce with his first wife Kavita, he met Shilpa Shetty. They got married in 2009.

Raj Kundra’s ex-wife had accused Shilpa Shetty of breaking up their marriage. She claimed her husband had become obsessed with Shilpa and they had started an affair. Recently, he talked about his relationship with Kavita and alleged that she had an affair with his former brother-in-law.

Raj Kundra was also involved in the IPL betting scandal in 2013, and was banned for life from cricket activities. His team Rajasthan Royals was banned for two years.

The home shopping portal owned by him had shut shop all of a sudden in December 2016. While the company cited demagnetization as the reason, vendors said production was stopped almost a week before the note ban announcement. They alleged that the company has defaulted on payments since the beginning of 2016.

In 2018, Enforcement Directorate questioned Kundra in connection with the Gain Bitcoin case where more than 8,000 people were duped of ₹2,000 crore.

Last year, Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra were named in an another scam concerning a gold trading company of which they are ex-directors.

The case was registered on February 4, 2021 at the Malwani police station, after a property cell official raided a bungalow in Madh, Malad (West), and arrested five individuals for their alleged involvement in forcing young men and women to act in pornographic films. The videos were being uploaded on mobile apps and porn websites. Initially, the police had arrested Rowa Khan alias Yasmeen who claimed to be a producer-director, photographer Monu Sharma, and creative director Pratibha Nalawade and two actors, Arish Shaikh and Bhanu Thakur.

“The law will take its course. We have full faith in Mumbai Police, which is doing a good job. The courts will eventually decide during trial as to who are the real culprits and which accused were merely used by others. I don’t want to comment anymore, as I am on bail in the same cases and I do not want to prejudice or impair my right to my personal defence,” said Gehana Vasisth on Monday. Vasisth, who was arrested for allegedly shooting the ‘pornographic and obscene’ videos uploaded by Kundra’s former employee, has been released on bail. On Tuesday, she issued another comment — “None of the films are porn films. Those are just bold films as other producers like Ekta Kapoor, Anurag Kashyap, Vibhu Agarwal and many others make. Other apps like Netflix and Amazon have bolder content than this. One needs to understand the difference between erotica and porn. I will request people to watch those films and only then comment. Police has just misinterpreted.”

“At this moment my heart goes out to Shilpa Shetty and her kids. I can’t imagine what she must be going through. So, I refuse to use this opportunity to highlight my trauma. The only thing I’ll add is that I had filed a police complaint in 2019 against Raj Kundra and subsequently registered a case at the honourable high court of Bombay against him for fraud and theft. This matter is sub judice, hence I would prefer to limit my statements. Also, I have full faith in our police and the judicial process,” said Poonam Pandey. Pandey had a contract with Kundra’s firm, that dealt with different apps, including Pandey’s adult app. She states that Kundra’s firm used her movies and footage illegally even after their contract was terminated.

Previously, the property cell had arrested Umesh Kamat, a man who had apparently claimed in his statement that he used to work for Raj Kundra’s company. Kamat’s name had surfaced during an interrogation surrounding actress-model Gehana Vasisth’s arrest on February 6, 2021. Kamath used to work for a UK-based firm as a coordinator and would take videos from Vasisth, and send them to the same firm that later uploaded them on an app, reportedly called HotShots. The former employee of Kundra was accused of uploading at least eight “pornographic and obscene” videos shot by Vasisth, reportedly from Kundra’s office. In the course of the hearings, it came to light that though Kundra claims to have sold the HotShots app to one of the wanted accused, Pradeep Bakshi (the proprieter of UKbased company Kenrin), it is claimed that he was regularly taking updates about financial dealings of this app.

Kundra had also made a Whatsapp group of which he was the admin, where he used to discuss distribution and financial transactions related to the clips of HotShots. Vasisth and Kamat would write stories for the HotShots app clips and the mails sent with the story to others were also marked to Raj Kundra. Police suspect Raj Kundra has a stake in Kenrin. Reportedly, Kundra is a relative of Pradeep Bakshi who lives in the UK. Besides being his relative and the chairman of this company, Bakshi is also Kundra’s business partner.

The 45-year-old was taken into custody by the Crime Branch after being booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Information Technology (IT) Act. Kundra has been booked under IPC Sections 420 (cheating), 34 (common intention), 292 and 293 (related to obscene and indecent advertisements and displays), and relevant sections of the IT Act and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, registered at Malwani police station on February 4 this year.

Kundra had approached the Sessions Court in June seeking anticipatory bail in a case filed by the cyber police in connection to a complaint alleging that certain online platforms were publishing obscene videos as a part of their web series. The complaint was filed last year under the IPC section pertaining to obscenity, the Information Technology Act and the Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act. Among those arrested was an employee of a tech startup linked with Kundra. The arrest was made on the basis of the statement of model Sherlyn Chopra. Kundra was summoned by the police. He claimed to have exited from the start-up, and had nothing to do with the alleged shoots or web series. The court is likely to decide on the anticipatory bail application next week.

In a video, actress-model Sagarika Shona Suman has claimed that she had got a call from Kamat, who offered her a web series which was supposedly backed by Kundra. She says she was further asked to give a nude audition on a video call, which she refused.

— With inputs from Agencies