Jackky Bhagnani, the Hindi actor-producer, and eight other celebrities of the Hindi film industry were accused of sexual assault and molestation in an FIR registered by a Mumbai-based songwriter and former model, the Bandra Police Station in Mumbai confirmed.
No arrests have been made yet.
In the FIR, photographer Colston Julian, Kwan Entertainment’s co-founder Anirban Das Blah, Krishan Kumar of T-Series, Nikhil Kamat, Sheel Gupta, Ajit Thakur, Gurujyot Singh, and Vishnu Wardhan Induri were accused of sexually assaulting the woman from 2012 to 2019.
According to Mid-day, on May 10, the woman approached Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone 10, Maheshwar Reddy, who directed an officer at the Andheri Police Station to record her statement. Her statement was recorded on May 18 and the matter was forwarded to Zone 9 DCP office in Bandra, as most incidents of the alleged sexual abuse took place in its jurisdiction.
The nine accused have been booked under Sections 376 (n) (commits rape repeatedly on the same woman) and 354 (molestation) of the Indian Penal Code on May 26.
“Police have registered an FIR after so many days of submitting my complaint letter against the high-profile people, but none of them have been arrested yet,” the woman told Mid-day.
“In a bid to conduct panchnama, one woman police officer took me to the locations where these accused sexually abused me in Mumbai. It seems that Colston Julian has gone underground as his Bandra house was locked and his car was also not there when we visited. Bhagnani is somewhere in foreign land and he is expected to reach Mumbai in September,” she added.
According to The Times of India, Julian’s lawyer, Ravina Rajpal, said in a statement, “It is a false case. We will cooperate with the authorities concerned in all ways possible. The matter is pending investigation and is sub judice. We are also exploring legal remedies including defamation in due course.”
In 2018, Blah was accused of sexually assaulting four women. After the accusations came to light, he was asked to quit Kwan.