Central Crime Branch (CCB) has raided the house of actress Ragini Dwivedi in connection with drug peddling. CCB police armed with a search warrant from the court went to Ragini’s residence at Judicial layout, Yalahanka, Bengaluru, with Woman Police Inspector and raided the home. Ragini was at home during the raid.
Karnataka: A search by Central Crime Branch (CCB) is underway at the residence of Kannada actress Ragini in Bengaluru, in connection with a drug case. pic.twitter.com/4HtUqTUwrq
— ANI (@ANI) September 4, 2020
Her friend Ravi Shankar was interrogated and arrested by police Yesterday on charges of drug supply. There was an allegation that drug racket is rampant in Kannada Film industry and also many influential people were involved in it.
According to sources, Shankar is an official in the state Regional Transport Office (RTO) at Jayanagar in the city’s upscale suburb. “Shankar is learnt to have attended rave parties with Ragini where drugs like marijuana (ganja), cocaine and hashish were used,” said a source.
City police have begun a crackdown since Monday after noted Kannada film producer Inderjit Lankesh alleged that about a dozen Sandalwood actors were into drugs and there was a nexus between them and drug mafias.
Ragini, 30, who is the first Kannada film actor to be summoned by the CCB after Lankesh on August 29, alleged that actors and musicians were involved in consuming banned drugs during shooting sessions and at rave parties organised by various stakeholders.
Lankesh’s startling revelations about the rampant abuse of banned drugs in the multi-crore film industry came three days after the Narcotic Control Bureau (NCB) busted a drug trafficking racket in the city and arrested former Kannada television actress D Anikha and two of her accomplices, R Ravindran and M Anoop, on August 26.
The central agency also seized huge cache of drugs from the accused, including 145 ecstasies or MDMA pills and Rs 2.2 lakh in cash from the Royal Suites Hotel Apartment in the city’s northeast suburb on August 21 and more pills in a follow-up raid last week.
The drug racket is suspected to supply recreational and party drugs to Sandalwood actors, children of VIPs, students and others.
“Noted musicians and actors in the Kannada film industry are under the scanner after their links to drugs came to light,” an NCB official had said earlier.
