Saturday, April 20, 2024
The Bollywood drugs scandal is spreading across India's entertainment industry.
After the September arrest of Bollywood actress Rhea Chakraborty for allegedly buying cannabis for her late actor-boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput, a leading TV comedian was on Saturday taken into custody by India's narcotics control authority for possession of drugs.
"Comedian Bharti Singh has been arrested after she and her husband, Harsh Limbachiyaa, were questioned for hours by our sleuths in our Mumbai office," a senior official of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) told the media.
Earlier in the day, the anti-narcotics sleuths conducted raids in the couple's flat in Mumbai's posh Andheri area and seized a "small quantity of cannabis".
Local TV channels beamed footage of the comedian couple being whisked away by NCB sleuths to their office for questioning. "They have called us for some questioning, that's all," Bharti told the media, while entering the bureau office.
The 36-year-old has done numerous comedy shows and hosted many award shows as well. She participated in popular TV reality shows 'Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa' in 2012, Nach Baliye in 2017 and Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi in 2019.
The raids come amid an expanding probe that began with an investigation into the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
Immediately after the arrest of Rhea, the names of at least 20 top Bollywood celebrities — from actors to filmmakers to designers — surfaced in the drugs case. Of them, four leading female Bollywood actors — Rakul Preet Singh, Deepika Padukone, Sara Ali Khan and Shraddha Kapoor — were grilled by NCB.
The grilling came in the wake of WhatsApp chats retrieved from Rhea's mobile phone indicating that they procured banned substances like cannabis, weed and hash from dealers with links to foreign countries.
Rhea was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau on September 9, following days of questioning, in connection with the death of 34-year-old Sushant Singh, whose body was found hanging from a ceiling fan in his Mumbai flat on June 14. She is currently out on bail.
