After the mammoth 10-hour-long grilling by the Special Investigation Team (
SIT) on Wednesday,
Puri Jagannadh now seems to be under trial by the public at large. While Puri released a video message denying having ever met the arrested drug peddler Calvin Mascarenhas, a series of photographs from his film
Jyothilakshmi
’s audio launch have set a lot of tongues wagging on the Internet.
‘Is that Calvin Mascarenhas standing beside Puri on stage?’ ‘Why is Charmme posing for a picture with Calvin?’ ‘How did Calvin get access to so many film
personalities?’ ‘Why was Puri’s number on his call logs?’ — these were just some of the questions that are being bounced around on timelines of Tollywood film lovers, even as one Naga Babu from Bangalore has been crying hoarse that it’s his picture that is being flashed as that of Calvin’s. But that’s not all. There’s a slew of wild speculations and conspiracy theories doing the rounds of Filmnagar.
THE
BANGKOK GANG
THEORY
Word on the street is that many of the names on SIT’s list has a connection with Tollywood’s ‘Bangkok Gang’. That’s the moniker being used for Puri and his close friends — Charmmee,
Ravi Teja, Subbaraju, BVS Ravi and
Mumaith Khan — who are known to frequent Bangkok, for work and play. wicked whispers suggest that it was only a matter of time before this fun-loving ‘Bangkok party gang’ got into trouble.
BLAME IT ON
BHARATHTalking of trouble, looks like it all began with the death of Ravi Teja’s brother Bharath, who was killed in a road accident recently. Bharath had earlier been arrested for drug abuse. Cops who took possession of Bharath’s phone after his fatal accident, reportedly got a lot of clues from the information stored in it. Apparently, it was Bharath’s phone that led the trail to Puri, Ravi Teja, Charmmee, Subbaraju etc.
ONLY SMALL FISH GET CAUGHT IN TROUBLED WATERS, BUT WHAT ABOUT BIG FISH?
What’s one thing common among everyone who’s been called for questioning by SIT? None of them have an influential father, uncle or grandfather who’s a Tollywood doyen. “In short, these are first generation film personalities with no family ‘connections’. It’s convenient to gang up against these so called “youngsters of tollywood” who are being blamed for bringing bad name to the industry. But that’s just rubbish! Recreational drug use is not new to Tollywood. Even back in the 1990s, the movers and shakers here were known to throw outrageous drug parties for their privileged inner circles. Tollywood has its shares of party boys and party girls even today. If anything their numbers have only grown. And quite a few of them come from influential filmy families,” says an insider, adding, “But who will bell the big cats — that’s the real question.”