Statements given to the police by victims in the pornography racket busted in February this year have revealed how the women were lured with money amid the lockdown, forced to perform obscene acts and threatened with police cases for violating the contract if they objected. mid-day has accessed the details of statements recorded by two such women.

The two small-time actresses were struggling to find work amid the lockdown. Signing up for work with the accused led them to be forced into making pornographic content. They were allegedly forced by accused Gehna Vasisth, Rova Khan and Tanveer Khan into the work. The trio sold the videos to Arvindkumar Srivastava alias Yash Thakur and businessman Raj Kundra. The videos were later uploaded on platforms such as Hot Hit, Nuefliks and HotShots.

According to a 25-year-old woman’s statement, she used to play small roles in short films in Hindi, Marathi and Bhojpuri. In 2018, she got some work through a casting director named Raunak. On February 4, they met in Malad where Rova also came and was introduced to the woman as the producer and director. The woman was taken to Madh in Rova’s car and given a script named ‘Single Mother’. The woman was then taken to the makeup room.

After the woman was ready, she was told she wouldn’t fit the role of a single mother as she was too thin and was given a script called ‘Bartanwali’. The woman read the script and refused to work. She was told by Rova that she would have to do the work if she wants money and that the film would not be aired on any channel. “People have to pay to watch this film, we have changed your name and look, no one will be able to recognize you,” the woman was allegedly told by Rova.

Then Rova asked the woman to record a small video using the name ‘Shanaya’ and saying, “Hi, my name is Shanaya. I have done Bold series on Hot Hit Channel. Download, Like and Subscribe to Hot Hit Channel to see my look. I don’t mind if this web series gets released anywhere.”

The woman was about to get Rs 25,000 but after recording the video she felt uncomfortable and refused to shoot. She was convinced by the man who played the lead actor and Rova’s friend, Pratibha. She was told that she will gradually become comfortable and that she will be a big name. Then the shoot began.

As per the script, the woman was to be a ‘bartanwali’ (utensil vendor) and ring the male lead’s doorbell. The man then took her inside his bedroom. The woman became uncomfortable during shooting and was told by Rova, “You didn’t have a boyfriend? Why are you being so shy? Are we asking you to have sex?”

The woman resumed work and finished the scene after which she was told to undress completely for the next scene. This scene, she was told, did not involve having intercourse. But the woman did not want to be nude, to which Rova responded with a threat, “Now all this has been done. If you do not have to do the next thing, then I will file a case against you for breaking the contract. I will take the money spent on the shooting from you. I see who gives you work in the film.”

“After the threat, I agreed to do the scene after practicing intimate scenes a few times while being half-naked. In the middle of this, women and men in plain clothes came into the room and said they are the police and the shooting stopped,” the woman said in her statement.

The second complainant, a 20-year-old, has a similar work profile. During the lockdown, she was not getting any work and was running out of money. On 10 January this year, she saw an advertisement on Instagram and Facebook for an acting assignment in web series. The ads had listed contact numbers. The woman contacted the number and was contacted by someone named Naresh a few days later. He told her to come for the shoot of a web series to be held in Madh. She was offered R10,000 daily. Naresh picked the woman up near Malad station and took her to a house in Madh. There she was told that the series belonged to Vasisth and was taken to the makeup room.

The woman was told that she’d be playing a queen and that there would be a kind, or raja, and three others. The story was apparently about a king and a queen. Initially, the shoot involved scenes shot in the garden outside the bungalow. Then Vasisth took the woman inside the hall in the bungalow where the next scene was to be shot.

The scene involved three people telling the woman that they had been waiting for her to turn 18, drag her into another room and take turns raping her. During the process, the woman objected to the scene but was threatened by Vasisth into working.

After the scene, the woman was dressing up in the makeup room when Vasisth visited her. The woman again objected to the work to which Vasisth responded saying Rs 10 lakh had been spent on the web series and if she refused to work, she’d have to pay the damages. Vasisth then took the woman back to the room for the next scene where she had to get perform intimate scenes with Akash, who was playing the king’s role. When the woman was leaving, Vasisth warned the woman to not reveal the details of the shoot to anyone. The film was uploaded by Vasistha on Nuefliks. The woman was paid Rs 10,000 for the film. The money was transferred to her father’s account.

In her statement to the police, the woman said, “The accused made me work in a porn film against my wishes. When I refused to work, they demanded R10 lakh as damages. Then they defamed me by uploading the film on a website.”

A Mumbai police officer told mid-day that the accused have made over 100 porn films in this way and uploaded them on platforms. “Whoever has been exploited in this manner can record their statement with us. At present, some victims are in touch with Mumbai police and their statements will be recorded.”

The mystery man in the alleged porn racket who claimed that Raj Kundra had paid Rs 25 lakh to cops during the initial days of the probe has told mid-day that he is being framed by the police for refusing to pay up. The man identified himself over the phone as Arvindkumar Srivastava, alias Yash Thakur, and said he is just a middleman for Nuefliks.com that allegedly uploads X-rated content.

Srivastava has emerged as a riddle for the Mumbai police since none of the accused has ever seen him. The police say he used to coordinate with the accused for porn videos through WhatsApp chats. So far, 11 people have been arrested, including actor Shilpa Shetty’s husband Raj Kundra, in the case for allegedly producing adult videos and making money out of it.

“I am a Singapore national and my parents live in Kanpur. I do outsourcing for multiple companies and my job profile is to manage servers, OTT platform solution design, find people with skills on social media and get the content submitted to Nuefliks platform. I use Yash Thakur as my social media identity and my real name is Arvindkumar Srivastava. I am hired by Nueflliks as a freelance consultant for managing operations,” Srivastava told mid-day.

According to the charge sheet filed in April, Thakur owns Nuefliks.com and would procure porn videos from production houses and upload them on his website. It says there were financial transactions and WhatsApp chats between Thakur and accused actress Gehna Vasisth, Tanvir Hashmi, alias Tan, Rowa Khan and Kundra’s former PA Umesh Kamat.

Srivastava shared a few papers with mid-day to claim that Nuefliks is an OTT platform based in California. “Whatever videos and contents we have purchased all are erotica and not pornography and I do not own Nuefliks company and same has been conveyed to the Mumbai crime by Nuefliks on their letterhead. The company has also informed them about the bribe demand from a middleman who said I needed to pay Rs 18 to 20 lakh to sort out everything like everyone took Kundra’s name but he wasn’t arrested because he had paid Rs 25 lakh to the officers,” he said.

Srivastava alleged the cops targeted him since they can’t do anything against Nuefliks. “They have frozen my ICICI account of Kanpur branch as well as my parents’ accounts who are 70 and 80 years old. My father gets his pension in it and they are being harassed by the  Mumbai police,” he said.

As per the police, the three seized accounts collectively have more than Rs 4.2 crore. The charge sheet says money from Nuefliks was transferred to these accounts in Kanpur. Srivastava said Nuefliks has already written to the Mumbai crime branch clarifying that he got money from them under an interim arrangement to manage their India operations.

The mystery man came on police radar after they got a WhatsApp chat between accused Hashmi and Yash Thakur. Tracking of the bank details took them to Srivastava’s parents in Kanpur. The charge sheet says Srivastava had visited the city in February 2020, though he told mid-day it was in February 2019.

Until they met Srivastava’s parents, the police thought he and Yash Thakur were two different persons and they had issued a Lookout Circular against both. The charge sheet says the crime branch investigation showed that Thakur lived in Indore but died in August 2020 due to a brain tumor. The Lookout Circular against Thakur was then struck off.

The crime branch apparently learnt that Srivastava was deliberately using the identity of a dead man to evade law enforcement agencies. “I am saying that I use both identities and I don’t know any person named Yash Thakur. Like Akshay Kumar uses two identities and various people in the film industry do,” Srivastava said.

The police have found that the wife of a Bhopal-based intelligence agency officer owned a company named Flizmovies OPC Pvt. Ltd. The officer said he first met Thakur on Yahoo Messenger in 2005. They reconnected over Facebook in 2017. Thakur started talking about making an OTT platform to host award-winning short films. “He came up with the idea of Flizmovies and asked me to open it on my name as he was in Singapore. After speaking to my wife I opened it in her name in March 2019,” the officer said in his statement.

The officer told the police Thakur mostly managed the affairs of the company. However, he backed out after he found porn contents on the website in August last year. He said he argued with Thakur and asked him to shut down everything that was in his wife’s name. Later, the company was acquired by Nuefliks, which cops say is owned by Srivastava.

Srivastava told mid-day that he doesn’t remember any central government official and that he just helped Flizmovies sell its rights to Nuefliks.