New Delhi: Mumbai actor Kadambari Jethwani has alleged that she and her family members were illegally arrested by three officers of Andhra Pradesh police to help save a corporate bigwig from Mumbai, against whom she filed a sexual harassment case. In an exclusive interview to NDTV, she said the arrest and seizure of her cellphone and other electronic devices were illegal, and that amounted to "deprivation of democratic and human rights".
The arrest, she said, was carefully timed.
It took place while her sexual harassment case was to be heard in Mumbai and because of her absence, the case was closed. She said she was arrested on February 3 -- days before the court case hearing, for which there was the February 5-9 window.
All three officers -- P S R Anjaneyulu (DG Rank), Kanthi Rana Tata (IG Rank) and Vishal Gunni (SP Rank) -- have now been suspended.
The complaint against her, on which she was arrested, came from a senior leader of YSR Congress, which was ruling the state at the time.
It was said that she had scammed him in connection with a land deal.
The entire complaint was cooked up, she said, stressing that she or her family have never set foot in Andhra Pradesh. There was no deal involving any land, she said.
"There was a lot of political manipulation, money power involved... without it, this level of orchestration would not have happened," the actor told NDTV.
The FIR against the corporate boss, she said, was filed in December. "Because of that FIR, this whole charade was carried out -- to shield the reputation of this Mumbai accused," she added.
The leader himself could not have carried out this "act of vengeance with a solid financial motive, she said. "Kukala Vidyasagar has 18 or more cases against him till 2015… He has a zone of influence in Kukalapatnam. Lots of political clout locally and he is the party strongman"," she said.
An example of the irregularities is that her arrest came before a First Information Report was filed from Kukala Vidyasagar's complaint – I am just stating facts here, not implying anything," she said.