Cops tell court that Kundra deleted his iCloud account but they were able to retrieve some emails with the help of cyber experts
Raj Kundra after his arrest last month. File pic
The Bombay High Court, hearing Raj Kundra’s plea challenging his arrest by the Mumbai Crime Branch, reserved its order in the case after hearing both sides on Monday. The Crime Branch informed the Bombay High Court that they have recovered 68 porn videos from Raj Kundra’s laptop and that he deleted his iCloud account.
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Kundra’s plea claims that due process was not followed in his arrest. The Mumbai Crime Branch in its reply to the court claimed that they cannot be mute spectators when the accused is destroying all evidence. Chief Public Prosecutor Aruna Pai claimed that a notice under Section 41A (notice of appearance before police officer) of the CrPC was served to Kundra and his associate, Ryan Thorpe, and that Kundra refused to accept it.
The Crime Branch claims that it has been able to retrieve some emails from iCloud with the help of cyber experts. The public prosecutor also mentioned WhatsApp chats between Kundra, his brother-in-law Pradeep Bakshi and Thorpe, where they are discussing the platform Bollyfame. Apart from 68 porn videos, the Crime Branch cited a presentation about the app HotShots found on Kundra’s laptop and claimed that he was running the app from his Mumbai office. The presentation contained details of financial projections and marketing strategies, and the laptop also allegedly contained scripts of sexual content.
The public prosecutor further told the court that the Storage Area Network (SAN) recovered from Kundra’s office has 51 porn clips and some were deleted by Thorpe, who handled IT, on Kundra’s instructions. The Crime Branch also claimed that Kundra has a British passport.
Kundra’s defence lawyer Abad Ponda countered the police’s claim saying, “If the hard disk and mobile phones were seized by police, then how was evidence destroyed. The destruction has also not been mentioned in the panchanama. Around 22 people were present during the panchanama. How come no one noticed that?”
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