Indrajit Lankesh drops names of industry biggies

Bengaluru: Filmmaker Indrajit Lankesh, brother of senior journalist Gauri Lankesh who was murdered in 2017, appeared before the City Crime Branch (CCB) on Monday.

Deposing before the CCB cops, the filmmaker is learnt to have provided some crucial evidence regarding the involvement of certain actors in the drug menace.

Lankesh, who appeared before the CCB Narcotics Wing with his advocate, provided video footage of rave parties involving actors. According to the sources, the video footage showed the actors doing drugs. In the interrogation that lasted more than five hours, Lankesh dropped the names of at least 10 top heroes and actresses, producers and music directors in Sandalwood involved in drugs. Soon after appearing before the CCB police, the filmmaker stated that he had shared information on the involvement of drug mafia in Sandalwood, however declined to reveal the names. "I have submitted the necessary evidence to prove that the Kannada film industry is involved in drugs. The guilty should be punished. My attempt is only to protect the youth from falling prey to narcotics," he stated.

"I was there (CCB office) for about 4.30 hours to five hours. If I have spent such a long time there then you can imagine how much information I would have shared with them (police)," Lankesh said.

Sandeep Patil, Joint Commissioner (Crime), said the police have recorded the statement of Lankesh and accordingly the investigations will be carried out. The CCB said it appreciated Lankesh for coming forward to give the information he had and appealed to the others to share whatever details they can to support the police in the fight against drugs.

Earlier, Lankesh stated that Sandalwood is in grip of drugs and claimed that a film actor high on drugs met with an accident a few months ago in a car. Lankesh questioned why the postmortem on the mortal remains of Chiranjeevi Sarja was not conducted. He had stated that there was political pressure to hush-up the issue by not conducting post-mortem.

He also claimed that he knew the politician who hushed up the matter. His claim came close on the heels of the NCB busting a drug racket involving the film industry -- M Anoop, R Ravindran and D Anikha .