Tollywood drugs case: No evidence of fund diversion, says ED

The investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the sensational Tollywood drugs case is complete and there has been no evidence of fund diversion. A total of 12 film personalities were summoned by the ED for interrogation and the entire trial ended on September 22 with the investigation of actor Tarun.

Hyderabad (Telangana): The investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the sensational Tollywood drugs case is complete and there has been no evidence of fund diversion. The drugs racket was busted four years ago when customs officials arrested Calvin Mascarenhas, a musician, and two others and seized drugs worth Rs 30 lakh from their possession. They had reportedly told the officials that they are supplying drugs to film celebrities, software engineers among others. The customs officials had also found mobile numbers of some film personalities in their contact lists.

A total of 12 film personalities were summoned by the ED for interrogation and the entire trial ended on September 22 with the investigation of actor Tarun.

On August 31, the ED had begun the trial of cine celebrities. Puri Jagannath, Charmi, Rakul Preet Singh, and Daggubati Rana were questioned between September 2 to 8, respectively. It was during this time that searches were held in the residences of drug dealer Calvin and his friend Zeeshan. They were also summoned for interrogation at the ED office.

On September 9, Ravi Teja and his chauffeur Srinivas were interrogated for six hours and on September 13, Navdeep and a club manager were interrogated for nine hours. This was followed by actors Mumaith Khan and Tanish being questioned on September 15 and September 17 respectively for almost seven hours.

Finally, on September 22, actor Tarun had appeared for the questioning. It is known that there is no strong evidence in the case and the celebrities were already given a clean chit by the excise department.

Cinematographer Shyam K Naidu, actors Subbaraju and Nandu were also among those questioned.

Though the excise department had made it clear that there was no evidence of Calvin having supplied drugs to the celebrities, ED had been investigating the case from an angle of diversion of funds based on their bank accounts. In this connection, all of the actors' bank transactions were examined and analyzed, but no evidence of fund diversion could be found.

Excise had earlier mentioned in the charge sheet that Calvin had maintained a WhatsApp group to supply drugs, however, it did not specify whether the group included the celebrities or who they were. Also, officials said that he might have mentioned the names of Tollywood celebrities with the intention of misleading the investigation.

On the other hand, when the ED was trying to probe the technical aspects, there was no clear evidence that the Tollywood celebrities had financial dealings with either Calvin or his gang members.

The excise department had constituted a special investigation team (SIT) for a comprehensive probe which registered a total of 12 cases and arrested 30 people. The team had examined 62 individuals including 11 people connected with Tollywood. The SIT had collected blood, hair, nail, and other samples from those it questioned and sent them for analysis. The SIT filed the charge sheet in eight out of 12 cases, however, it gave a clean chit to the film personalities.