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This story is from June 21, 2004

Pooja caught with SA babe in visa Rog

Police say visa not valid for actors. Pooja Bhatt begs to differ.
<arttitle>Pooja caught with SA babe in visa <i>Rog</i></arttitle>
<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-family:="" arial="">Ilene Hamann (20), who lives in Cape Town and knows only three Hindi words, is the first South African to star in a Hindi movie. She makes her debut in </span><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-style:="" italic="">Rog </span><span style="" font-family:="" arial="">after producer and Pooja Bhatt saw her picture on a magazine cover.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="">But it''s a tense time now for Ilene and Pooja as the Foreigners Registration Office has held the model for not having a visa.
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"Yesterday, four men from the FRO came to my hotel room and asked me to come with them," says Ilene. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="">Later, when Pooja arrived, they showed the visa papers, but the officers said that it was a ''J'' visa and they were not aware of what that was. "When we called the ACP, he said it was top secret and you will have to come in person. That gave us negative signals. When we met them in person, they said it was the wrong visa; ''J'' visa is meant only for journalists. It''s strange that even their office didn''t know what a ''J'' visa was," says Pooja.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="">She then called up the embassy in South Africa who sent a letter, saying that the visa was proper and ''J'' visa was meant for the media, including actors. With all this, the shoot was cancelled and Pooja lost Rs 2.5 lakh. "Today we could have sorted this but people from abroad have been hassled for no reason. We''re just giving our country a bad name," says Pooja.</span></div> </div>
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