ED proactive on Tollywood drugs case

Hyderabad: Investigations into the alleged drug mafia link in Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide case are leading the central agency, the Enforcement Directorate (ED), to the doorsteps of Tollywood.

Sources said that after the questioning of actress Rakul Preet Singh in this case, the ED dug deeper into aspects of money laundering in the Tollywood drug scam case. It suo motu filed an interim application in the Telangana high court here and sought a direction to the state prohibition and excise department to hand over the material it had gathered during its 2017 investigation into the use of drugs by Telugu film personalities.

The ED retained the service of top legal officials to handle its application in the high court and even complained to the court about non-cooperation from the state agencies. Stating that it had written to the commissioner of Prohibition and Excise seeking data, the ED said it has not received any reply/data till date from this department.

“We made both central and state agencies including the ED respondents in the public interest litigation seeking a quick and fair probe into the use of drugs,” said advocate Rachana Reddy. She is representing state Congress president Revanth Reddy, who filed a PIL in relation to the case.

“After a few hearings, we came to know that the state agencies had furnished the material sought by the ED,” Rachana said.

NEW TURN: The drugs case took a significant turn on Wednesday with the ED adding the names of Rakul Preet and Rana Daggubati to the list of directors and actors already summoned by the TS agency. Though the actor’s name had been mentioned during the 2017 investigation, the department avoided summoning Rakul, who is popular in the city power circles. This time, however, the central agency summoned the actor to question her on the links to money laundering in the drugs case.

Actor Raviteja, director Puri Jagannath, actress Charmee and Mumaith Khan as also actors of small budget films like Navadeep, Tanish and Tarun were also summoned by the ED.

After days of grilling under the media glare by senior IPS official Akun Sabharwal, the department exonerated all the film personalities. The name of none of these figured in the 11 charge sheets filed by the excise wing.

“This time we hope the case is taken to its logical conclusion,” said Padmanabha Reddy, secretary, Forum for Good Governance. He has been fighting against the delay in the investigations into the drugs case.