Industrialist Nusli Wadia was given police security on Wednesday after the Wadia Group filed a complaint with the Mumbai police claiming that two of its employees received threat calls allegedly from the underworld gangster Ravi Pujari.
This comes less than a week after actress Preity Zinta filed a complaint alleging that she was abused and molested by Mr. Wadia’s son, Ness.
In their complaint to the police, the Wadia group has also alleged that one of their employees received a text message warning Mr. Nusli Wadia not to meddle in the Preity- Ness controversy. According to a senior police officer who spoke to The Hindu on the condition of anonymity, “The SMS was sent in English and it stated that ‘Do not do mischief with Preity otherwise it will harmful for your business’ (sic).
“A complaint states that the caller had identified himself as underworld gangster Ravi Pujari. The Anti Extortion Cell of the Mumbai Police is probing the complaint and a case has been registered against unknown person under section 506 (2) of the IPC,” Mumbai police commissioner, Mr. Rakesh Maria told the press.
On Wednesday the police recorded the statements of the two secretaries who received the alleged threat calls. “Since the calls were recorded, we will make the two secretaries hear the voice samples of Pujari so as to ascertain if the caller was indeed Pujari,” the officer added.
While the caller claimed that he was calling from Australia, another senior police officer told The Hindu that the calls were routed through Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol (VOIP) and the SMS was tracked to Iran.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday afternoon the actress communicated through her lawyer to the Mumbai police that she will record her statement before the police by the end of this week. Ms.Zinta is currently in USA and is expected to take an early morning flight to India on Thursday.
The police have also sought assistance from BCCI officials and IPL CEO Mr. Sundar Raman in the case. “We have sought the list of the hospitality staff members of the team who were present at the time of the incident. We have also asked BCCI to share the CCTV footages of the owner’s box and the ground where Ms. Zinta went after the match got over. We have also asked them to help us with the name of the official with whom Ms. Zinta lodged a verbal complaint of the alleged incident,” the police officer said. “We have also asked BCCI to write to Sony and ask them to share the CCTV footages of their 19 cameras installed in the stadium on that day,” he added.
