Actor and producer Gehana Vasisth appeared at the Property Cell office at Byculla, Mumbai on Thursday to record her statement with the Mumbai Crime Branch in relation to the ongoing Raj Kundra pornographic films case.
The case in question involves the creation of pornographic videos under the pretext of producing short films for OTT platforms and the distribution of these videos on apps such as Hotshots.
An FIR has been filed by the police based on a complaint stating that Vasisth, who was allegedly the director of porn films, threatened, coerced and lured women to act in obscene videos. The complainant claimed that she was coerced to act in such videos by Vasisth, which were then uploaded on the mobile application NueFlix.
Vasisth defended her actions on Thursday saying the content she produced for the online platforms was “bold, erotic content” which does not qualify as pornographic material. “There is yet no censorship for digital platform. If something is being done behind closed doors, no permission is needed,” she said in her statement as per an India Today report.
Further, she claimed that she has been framed throughout and said there is no evidence against her.
This comes after the Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the Bombay High Court order rejecting the anticipatory bail plea filed by Gehana Vasisth in the current FIR, which is the third one filed by the Mumbai Crime Branch in the case. The court ordered her to join the investigation as and when required.
Investigation into the pornography case began in February, at which time, Vasisth was taken into custody for over four months for offences similar to those in the present FIR. While she was in jail during the early stages of the investigation, a second FIR was filed against Vasisth and following her release, a third one was filed pertaining to the same case seeking her custody once again.
Kundra, who is actor Shilpa Shetty’s husband, has been accused as a “key conspirator” in the case. He is currently out on bail after being in custody for about 2 months.
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Since his arrest on July 19, Vasisth has constantly voiced her support for Kundra through her Instagram page and has been claiming that the videos they made were not porn but ‘erotica’.
Even while recording her statement on Thursday, she said, “(I) don’t want to comment on Raj Kundra right now, but we didn’t make anything that could be called porn.”