A dozen female film and TV artists of Kerala have complained to the Ernakulam City Police about a gang that threatens them with kidnaps, ransom money, forced flesh trade and gold smuggling, according to Vijay Sakhare, City Police Commissioner.
The first artist to boldly file a complaint with the police was Shamna Kasim, an upcoming film star, who complained to the police that a five-member gang was trying to extort money from her and kidnap her for ransom
. She told the police that the gang approached her parents with a marriage proposal for a youth working in a West Asian country. They even sent the Kasims photographs of a Dubai based youth as the prospective groom. Shamna’s parents received phone calls from the so called ‘parents’ of the youth and it ended up in the arrest of ten persons. It was their dubious behaviour that evoked doubts in the minds of Shamna’s parents, the artist told media persons.
“Shamna Kasim is just the tip of the ice berg. The gang has established contacts with many artists and some of them have confided to the police the entire happenings. This is not just a one-off crime affair. A massive operation is underway to exploit the film stars,” said Sakhare.
The modus operandi of the gang is as follows. They collect the contact numbers of the gullible stars, approach them with marriage proposals, roles in films, advertisement films and fully paid trip to West Asian countries for stage shows.
“These stage shows are a façade for their anti-social and anti-national activities. There are enough links pointing towards smuggling of gold and narcotics making use of the services of these stars,” said a senior police officer on condition of anonymity.
The gang members are skilled enough to take pictures and videos of these unsuspecting stars and later they blackmail them with these pictures. “Many have fallen into sex trade as well as gold/narcotics smuggling as a result of this tactics,” said the police officials.
Mankombu Gopalakrishnan, dubbing director, lyricist and script writer, is of the view that many upcoming stars and mimicry artists in Mollywood (as Malayalam film industry is known) might have fallen into this trap. “The last two years have been a period of crisis due to the floods of 2018 and 2019. The year 2020 has been devoured by coronavirus. More than the income from films, these stars were surviving on the income from stage shows. The floods and the corona pandemic derailed their livelihood and most of them are facing uncertainty,” said Gopalakrishnan.
Lalithasree, actress and dubbing artist, based in Chennai, too agreed to what Gopalakrishnan said. “Their dreams have no borders and limits. Whatever they earn is squandered away through shopping and high style living. They never expected the nature’s fury and the corona pandemic would strike them like this. We have the case of Sushant Singh Rajput before us. Ill not be surprised if some stars from Malayalam film industry choose the path of Rajput. Situation is really bad,” said Lalithasree.
Ernakulam Police is probing the matter. Ten persons have been arrested so far and three of them managed to get bail and come out.