First 
two actors are caught in a drug bust. Then a sex racket involving two actresses is unearthed. One embarrassment heaped on another ' the Telugu film industry is suddenly in the news for all the wrong reasons.
With many big names being dragged into the two raging scandals, people in the Hyderabad-based movie industry are scurrying for cover.
Big, bad Bollywood has never been a stranger to sleaze. Tainted money, prostitution rings, the casting couch and drug abuse have often cast a shadow on the Hindi film industry's reputation. But Telugu filmdom was hitherto relatively untouched by scandals of such proportions.
On August 19, a Hyderabad police task force, in a decoy operation, nabbed two character actors, Raghu Babu and Bharat, brothers of matinee idol Ravi Teja, red-handed when they were striking a deal with a Nigerian drug peddler, Chima Clement, alias Victor. The latter has been living in the city illegally.
The two actors and a businessman friend, D. Naresh, were booked under Section 28 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.
The renewed focus on drug trafficking in Hyderabad came after four African peddlers were arrested while selling drugs in posh areas of Hyderabad in a span of a month and a half.
The
police seized Clement's mobile phone and laptop. The two devices, as city police commissioner A.K. Khan revealed, yielded the names of several celebrities from the world of movies, politics and business. These personalities are suspected to have been in touch with the drug peddler on a regular basis.
Close on the heels of the arrest of Raghu and Bharat, two Telugu film actresses, Jyothi and Saira Banu, were arrested for prostitution in a police raid on an apartment in Hyderabad. An Uzbek girl and six others were also taken into custody.
The actresses have denied that they are involved in a sex racket. They claim they were in the building to meet a filmmaker for a script narration.
These developments have set the cat among the pigeons. The party scene in Hyderabad, where drugs are known to be consumed freely and in large quantities, has abruptly gone quiet, especially after the west zone deputy commissioner of police Stephen Ravindra decided to unleash four crack anti-narcotics teams to keep an eye on city pubs frequented by Telugu movie personalities, sons and daughters of powerful politicians and industrialists and professionals engaged in the IT sector.
The electronic media went ballistic in the wake of the drug bust. Drawing inferences from Clement's mobile phone book, some channels went to the extent of naming Trisha Krishnan, south India's highest paid actress and the leading leading lady of the recent Akshay Kumar starrer, Khatta Meetha, as one of the drug peddler's clients. The channels also dragged the names of Tamil/Telugu actresses like Madhu Shalini and Kamna Jethmalani into the scandal.
Trisha has strongly denied her involvement in the drug racket and has already taken legal action against the TV channel that named her in connection with the scandal. The others, too, have dismissed the charges as baseless and have offered to face blood tests in order to prove their innocence. Stars in a tangle 'It is ridiculous to sling mud on a top actress like Trisha,' actor-turned-politician Dr Rajasekhar told TSI. 'Had she been a drug addict, she wouldn't have reigned over the Telugu industry the way she does.'
'An actress who is high on drugs can never do justice to her work,' argued Dr Rajasekhar, who is also a qualified physician. He accused the police of systematically targeting leading personalities in the Telugu film industry. He asked: 'Why aren't they revealing the names of VIPs from other fields?'
Disputing Dr Rajasekhar's comments, an intelligence officer of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) insisted that many superstars and entertainers snort coke as a means to achieving a state of heightened energy. 'The consumption of cocaine and marijuana in limited potency lends a glow to the face. That is why many silver screen heroes and heroines use drugs on a regular basis,' he told TSI on condition of anonymity.
Some psychiatrists say that drugs also help people in tinsel town tide over their fears and insecurities in the face of stressful situations. 'In some cases, consumption of drugs becomes a necessity for those that have monotonous lives and careers,' Hyderabad-based psychiatrist Dr Yerra Sudheer Babu told TSI. Stars in a tangle According to the NCB intelligence officer, a past-his-prime Telugu movie actor, who once had a squeaky-clean image, is now the biggest drug peddler in the industry. The police and NCB have concrete evidence that the jet-setting film industry crowd in Hyderabad are heavily into substance abuse.
The revelations of two Ugandan youths who were nabbed recently in Delhi had alerted the police about drug trafficking in Hyderabad. According to highly placed police sources, the size of the annual nefarious business merely on the sale of cocaine, brown sugar and other drugs crosses Rs 500 crore. It is said that peddlers share 40 per cent of the profits with some film personalities who serve as conduits.
The police were once under the impression that the drugs were smuggled in from neighbouring countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. But now it is confirmed with ample evidence that Africa is the main source of drugs. Since the drugs produced in Africa are far stronger in intensity but cost much less, Uganda, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria and South Africa have become the latest drug hubs.
In 2004, when the sleuths of the department of revenue intelligence seized a whopping Rs 100-crore worth of narcotic drugs, called MDMA, in the form of tablets being produced and manufactured in a local factory in Jeedimetla industrial area in Hyderabad, the city first hit the headlines as a hub of the drug trade.
Six years later, in 2010, when a film producer was caught while smuggling drugs and two film actors were caught while buying them, the notoriety of Hyderabad has been reestablished. Since most of the victims of drug abuse are teenagers, the superintendent of the regional intelligence unit of NCB, Lakshmi Pathy, called upon parents to be vigilant about the dangers their wards face.
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two actors are caught in a drug bust. Then a sex racket involving two actresses is unearthed. One embarrassment heaped on another ' the Telugu film industry is suddenly in the news for all the wrong reasons.With many big names being dragged into the two raging scandals, people in the Hyderabad-based movie industry are scurrying for cover.
Big, bad Bollywood has never been a stranger to sleaze. Tainted money, prostitution rings, the casting couch and drug abuse have often cast a shadow on the Hindi film industry's reputation. But Telugu filmdom was hitherto relatively untouched by scandals of such proportions.
On August 19, a Hyderabad police task force, in a decoy operation, nabbed two character actors, Raghu Babu and Bharat, brothers of matinee idol Ravi Teja, red-handed when they were striking a deal with a Nigerian drug peddler, Chima Clement, alias Victor. The latter has been living in the city illegally.
The two actors and a businessman friend, D. Naresh, were booked under Section 28 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.
The renewed focus on drug trafficking in Hyderabad came after four African peddlers were arrested while selling drugs in posh areas of Hyderabad in a span of a month and a half.
The
police seized Clement's mobile phone and laptop. The two devices, as city police commissioner A.K. Khan revealed, yielded the names of several celebrities from the world of movies, politics and business. These personalities are suspected to have been in touch with the drug peddler on a regular basis.Close on the heels of the arrest of Raghu and Bharat, two Telugu film actresses, Jyothi and Saira Banu, were arrested for prostitution in a police raid on an apartment in Hyderabad. An Uzbek girl and six others were also taken into custody.
The actresses have denied that they are involved in a sex racket. They claim they were in the building to meet a filmmaker for a script narration.
These developments have set the cat among the pigeons. The party scene in Hyderabad, where drugs are known to be consumed freely and in large quantities, has abruptly gone quiet, especially after the west zone deputy commissioner of police Stephen Ravindra decided to unleash four crack anti-narcotics teams to keep an eye on city pubs frequented by Telugu movie personalities, sons and daughters of powerful politicians and industrialists and professionals engaged in the IT sector.
The electronic media went ballistic in the wake of the drug bust. Drawing inferences from Clement's mobile phone book, some channels went to the extent of naming Trisha Krishnan, south India's highest paid actress and the leading leading lady of the recent Akshay Kumar starrer, Khatta Meetha, as one of the drug peddler's clients. The channels also dragged the names of Tamil/Telugu actresses like Madhu Shalini and Kamna Jethmalani into the scandal.
Trisha has strongly denied her involvement in the drug racket and has already taken legal action against the TV channel that named her in connection with the scandal. The others, too, have dismissed the charges as baseless and have offered to face blood tests in order to prove their innocence. Stars in a tangle 'It is ridiculous to sling mud on a top actress like Trisha,' actor-turned-politician Dr Rajasekhar told TSI. 'Had she been a drug addict, she wouldn't have reigned over the Telugu industry the way she does.'
'An actress who is high on drugs can never do justice to her work,' argued Dr Rajasekhar, who is also a qualified physician. He accused the police of systematically targeting leading personalities in the Telugu film industry. He asked: 'Why aren't they revealing the names of VIPs from other fields?'
Disputing Dr Rajasekhar's comments, an intelligence officer of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) insisted that many superstars and entertainers snort coke as a means to achieving a state of heightened energy. 'The consumption of cocaine and marijuana in limited potency lends a glow to the face. That is why many silver screen heroes and heroines use drugs on a regular basis,' he told TSI on condition of anonymity.
Some psychiatrists say that drugs also help people in tinsel town tide over their fears and insecurities in the face of stressful situations. 'In some cases, consumption of drugs becomes a necessity for those that have monotonous lives and careers,' Hyderabad-based psychiatrist Dr Yerra Sudheer Babu told TSI. Stars in a tangle According to the NCB intelligence officer, a past-his-prime Telugu movie actor, who once had a squeaky-clean image, is now the biggest drug peddler in the industry. The police and NCB have concrete evidence that the jet-setting film industry crowd in Hyderabad are heavily into substance abuse.
The revelations of two Ugandan youths who were nabbed recently in Delhi had alerted the police about drug trafficking in Hyderabad. According to highly placed police sources, the size of the annual nefarious business merely on the sale of cocaine, brown sugar and other drugs crosses Rs 500 crore. It is said that peddlers share 40 per cent of the profits with some film personalities who serve as conduits.
The police were once under the impression that the drugs were smuggled in from neighbouring countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. But now it is confirmed with ample evidence that Africa is the main source of drugs. Since the drugs produced in Africa are far stronger in intensity but cost much less, Uganda, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria and South Africa have become the latest drug hubs.
In 2004, when the sleuths of the department of revenue intelligence seized a whopping Rs 100-crore worth of narcotic drugs, called MDMA, in the form of tablets being produced and manufactured in a local factory in Jeedimetla industrial area in Hyderabad, the city first hit the headlines as a hub of the drug trade.
Six years later, in 2010, when a film producer was caught while smuggling drugs and two film actors were caught while buying them, the notoriety of Hyderabad has been reestablished. Since most of the victims of drug abuse are teenagers, the superintendent of the regional intelligence unit of NCB, Lakshmi Pathy, called upon parents to be vigilant about the dangers their wards face.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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