T-town’s hall of shame

Apart from the blockbusters that set the Box Office on fire, brand Tollywood took a beating, thanks to a string of controversies...
The year 2011 was no better than a controversy-and-arrest ridden 2010 for Tollywood, as it made headlines this year for raids by IT sleuths, its connection in drug rackets, land mafia and faction groups, brawls and drunken driving cases.We take a quick look at the controversies that dented Tollywood’s image in the year gone by.
Under the IT sleuths’ scanner Tollywood was under the Income Tax Department’s scanner as their officials raided residences and offices of many Tollywood personalities earlier this year. March 23 saw IT sleuths carry out surprise raids on residences and offices of Nagarjuna, Ravi Teja, Anushka Shetty and producer D. Shiva Prasad Reddy. Reddy’s production house, Kamakshi Movies, is known to make films only with Nagarjuna and his family, hinting that Nag’s camp was under the IT Department’s scanner.
In November, IT officials raided the residence and office of Anil Sunkara — producer of “Dookudu”. “Dookudu” star Mahesh Babu too came under the IT Department’s radar as his residence was raided earlier this month following the runaway success of the film.
Drug nexus Time and again, the ugly nexus between T-town and drugs surfaced. The cocaine connection that came to light by last year’s arrest of actor Ravi Teja’s brothers Raghubabu and Bharat, was further exposed when filmmaker Jeevitha Rajasekhar’s brother and producer, Murali Srinivas, was nabbed with 303 grams of cocaine with three others — two friends Chander alias Nash Paritala Rambabu, and Nigerian peddler Daniel Fernandez. The T-Cocaine connection resurfaced in April when a Sudanese national was arrested in possession of 10 gms of cocaine in Filmnagar.
But the controversy of the year was when actor Varun Sandesh found his name dragged in a drug racket controversy after cops nabbed Dr DV Siddharth and a Nigerian national James Egems in possession of the contraband in July. Apart from the actor, producer Uppalpati Ravi and actor Avinash’s name also figured in the Dr Srikanth and James’ ‘on-record’ confessions. The three T-town personalities were interrogated by cops. Varun pleaded innocence and said he was not in the habit of having drugs. But he confirmed that he knew Siddharth.
Gambling with danger Ravi Teja’s father Bhoopathi Rajagopala Raju was arrested on gambling charges for playing cards at the Golden Club in Ranigunj in May 2011. The actor’s dad is 70 years old and was among 46 others who were nabbed for gambling by betting money on cards games.
Brawl brouhaha Navdeep’s name was dragged into an eve-teasing brawl that involved his friends and a group of engineering students in October. Several versions of the brawl spilled out and the actor denied the allegations of thrashing an engineering student. He claimed that he was being targeted and the matter was being blown out of proportion since he was a celebrity.
land mafia links The special Crime Investigation Department team that is investigating factionist Suri’s murder case, apprehended Tollywood producer C Kalyan in Chennai earlier this year. Two cases of cheating were booked against Kalyan by Central Crime Station based on complaints made by Mohammed Ashraf of Shalimar Videos and Mohammed Ashfaq of Universal Home Entertainment. The cases were transferred to CID, which was entrusted with the responsibility of investigating the murder case of factionist Maddelacheruvu Suryanarayana Reddy alias Suri. It is alleged that C Kalyan did business with warlord Maddelacheruvu Suri and Bhanu, the alleged killers of Suri. A few days before Kalyan’s arrest, producer Singanamala Ramesh Babu was arrested in connection with three cheating cases. His involvement with Bhanu Kiran, prime accused in the Suri murder case, is under the scanner too.
Drunken Driving Actor Nikhil made headlines after being booked for drunken driving. His car was seized and the actor was presented in front of the magistrate where he was fined
` 2,600. His four-wheeler driving licence was also suspended for a year. But kudos to the actor who decided to become the Hyderabad Traffic Police’s ambassador and support their special drive against drunken driving. He participated in anti-alcohol and anti-drunken driving programmes that have been held in the city.