Mumbai Police said that they decided to arrest actress Shilpa Shetty’s husband Raj Kundra and his business associate Ryan Thorpe as the duo was trying to destroy evidence in porn content creation and distribution cases. The Mumbai Police said this to Bombay High Court after Raj Kundra’s lawyer told the court that his client’s arrest is ‘illegal’ as the police did not serve any prior legal notice to the businessman.
Public prosecutor Aruna Pai, who appeared on behalf of Mumbai Police told the Bombay HC on Saturday (July 31) that Raj Kundra and Thorpe were served notice under Section 41A of the CrPC act and both were required to appear before a police officer. Pai added that Kundra refused to appear before the police but Thorpe accepted the notice. Pai asserted that the police cannot be ‘mute spectators’ while the accused ‘destroy’ evidence. “Instead of cooperating, they started deleting content from WhatsApp groups and chats. Thus, they started destroying evidence. When an accused starts destroying evidence, investigating authorities cannot be mute spectators, they have to prevent them. Therefore, in order to prevent them, they were arrested,” Aruna Pai told the Bombay High Court.
She added, “Police have seized 51 movies under the Hotshot and Bolly Fame app during their search. Besides, more material was seized from Kundra’s personal laptop, mobile phone and Storage Area Network (SAN) device.” It may be recalled that Raj Kundra was arrested by Mumbai Police on July 19 for his involvement in porn creation and distribution racket.
