Mumbai: Actor Chrisann Pereira arrest case, chargesheet to also mention DJ Clayton Rodrigues

PTI, Jun 20, 2023, 2:56 PM IST

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The Mumbai police will soon file a chargesheet in the alleged frame-up of actor Chrisann Pereira and the document will also mention DJ Clayton Rodrigues who was also apparently targeted by accused Anthony Paul, an official said on Tuesday.

Pereira (27) spent nearly a month in a Sharjah jail after a small quantity of a drug was found concealed in a memento given to her by the accused in an alleged set-up.

DJ (disco jockey) Rodrigues (37) was arrested in Sharjah and a court there last month sentenced him to 25 years in jail. “During our investigation, the probe team found that both Chrisann and Rodrigues were framed by the accused in drugs cases and we are going to put this fact before the court in the chargesheet,” said a senior police official.

The findings of the probe could help DJ Rodrigues, he said.

After filing the chargesheet before the court in Mumbai, it can be translated into Arabic by Rodrigues’s family and they can send it to their lawyer for further legal process in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), he said.

The family through their lawyer has appealed against the conviction, he said.

Pereira, who acted in Mahesh Bhatt-directed Bollywood movie ‘Sadak 2’, was apprehended at the Sharjah airport on April 1 following the discovery of a drug in a memento that the accused had asked her to hand it over to someone in the UAE.

After her arrest, Anthony Paul and another accused Ravi Bobhate allegedly demanded Rs 80 lakh from her mother. The actor was released after the Mumbai police sent the case-related documents to the authorities in UAE.

Rodrigues was also the victim of Anthony Paul’s plot, the official said.

As they probed into the Pereira alleged frame-up case, the Mumbai police also investigated four similar matters, including that of Rodrigues, in which victims were sent to Sharjah by the accused persons.

Rodrigues’s wife had met the crime branch officials and filed a complaint against the accused alleging that they framed the DJ.

Police did not register a separate case in the DJ’s alleged frame-up as he was convicted, but will mention in the chargesheet how he was deceived like Pereira by the accused and was not aware that drugs had been planted in a cake that he was carrying to Sharjah, he said.