Hyderabad drug bust : Telugu film industry struggles to face drug-related charges
- Most of the people who have been summoned have said they are not guilty
- Police has called these Telugu film personalities for an investigation
- Ravi Teja’s mother says actor does not smoke or do drugs
FollowThe Telangana excise department has set up a special investigation team to probe a drug supply racket which was busted with the arrest of three persons. Three alleged drug peddlers -- Abdul Quddos who works for a private firm, Abdul Wahab who is a student, and Calvin Mascrenhas, a small-time musician -- were arrested. It was from Calvin’s phone that crucial evidence connecting Tollywood and drugs had been obtained.
Accordingly, the department is also probing the alleged links of certain Tollywood personalities with the drug peddlers, and had issued notices to a total of 12 persons asking them to remain present before the authorities from July 19 –July 27. Now 15 more film personalities may get the SIT notice, investigation has revealed.
Ravi Teja, Tarun, Navdeep, Tanish, Nandoo and Subba Raju, as well as actresses Charmme Kaur and Mumaith Khan, director Puri Jagannadh, cameraman Shyam K Naidu, art director Chinna and Ravi Teja’s driver Srinivas Rao were also reported to have been issued notices. No charges have been levied and no arrests of film personalities have been made so far. They have only been sent notices and a reply is sought from them. While some of them acknowledged the notices, they also denied the allegations. Most of them took to some form of media to deny the charges.
"It is usual to sensationalise news as soon as there are film people involved, me being involved in events and working with some wrong event managers I can understand why this happened," tweeted Navdeep.
"It's a matter of time before this is sorted .. requesting media and people to have patience," he added.
I am a film actor, anyone can have my number : Subbaraju
The arguments being put forward is that these celebrities may not actually be the end users but could be procurers. It is alleged that many of the filmy parties are fuelled by usage of drugs openly. So some of these mentioned may be serving it to others during parties.
Meanwhile, according to a report in the Sakshi Post, the Movie Artists Association (MAA) conducted a meeting and slammed those who were involved in the drug scandal. The meeting was presided by its president Sivaji Raja. They said that due to the involvement of a handful of persons, the whole industry was now being blamed.
In another report by Sakshi, actor Ravi Teja’s mother Rajya Lakshmi said: "Leave alone drugs, my son doesn't even have a habit of smoking a cigarette. He doesn't encourage smokers even during the shooting in the sets.”
