'They dragged me, abducted me...:' Mumbai-based actor Kadambari Jethwani alleges wrongful arrest, deep conspiracy

The recent suspensions of three top Andhra Pradesh Police cops has laid bare a murky saga involving the 42-day detention of a woman who had filed a sexual harassment case against a Mumbai-based industrialist.

Model and actress Kadambari Jethwani, in an exclusive conversation with the India Today group, accused Andhra Pradesh police of staging her abduction under the guise of a concocted First Information Report (FIR). The case, she alleges, was filed in order to protect the industrialist by preventing her from recording her statement in the case. The 30-year-old Jethwani had registered the case against the tycoon last December, which was subsequently closed.

“The entire motive behind this abduction was to isolate and silence me”, Jethwani claimed in her conversation with India Today’s J. Apoorva. “I wasn’t allowed to contact anyone, neither legal aid nor relatives. I repeatedly pleaded for the officers to show their IDs or legal documents, but they refused. I feared for my life, thinking I might be kidnapped or killed. They deprived me of all my human rights, just dragged me, abducted me and dumped me”, she added.

Jethwani’s complaint against the industrialist was closed by Mumbai Police on March 16 this year on the grounds that the complainant had filed the case with the intention of framing the industrialist, and that she did not appear to record her statement during the probe.

However, it now emerges that the actress, her mother and father among several others, were picked up by Andhra Pradesh police on the basis of an FIR filed on February 2 by K.V.R Vidyasagar, a leader of the YSR Congress, the party in power in the state at the time.

The actress is now alleging that she was illegally arrested on February 3 earlier this year, and confined in custody by the Andhra Pradesh Police, at a time when she should have been recording her statement in the complaint before the Mumbai Police.

“The case in Mumbai was under investigation until February 9th. However, I was abducted on February 3rd by the Andhra police even before a formal complaint was lodged against me”, Jethwani told India Today, adding that she was unable to attend the court hearings between February 5th and 9th, leading to the Mumbai police closing the case. “I was falsely accused of wasting the court's time”, she said.

Jethwani further alleged that Mumbai Police knew of her whereabouts all along. “What troubles me is that a letter from DCP Dixit Gedam of Mumbai was sent on February 6th to the Commissionerate in Vijayawada, asking about my whereabouts, so they knew I was in Andhra Pradesh. Yet, they still closed the case, falsely claiming I had disappeared. This closure report maligned my name, and I want to clarify that this was part of a conspiracy”, she added.

The actress said that political pressure was piled on her during her 42 days in Andhra Pradesh Police custody to withdraw her case against a Mumbai-based industrialist.

“All those involved in this conspiracy need to face the consequences. This was not an isolated incident but a calculated effort by powerful individuals. I know there was a lot of money and power fuelling this. The extent of the conspiracy, how far up the hierarchy it goes, needs to be fully investigated. Justice needs to be served not just for me but for anyone else who might face such harassment”, she said.

An internal investigation followed the change in the Andhra Pradesh state government this June, concluded gross misconduct on the part of police officers. Three top cops, including one of the rank of Director General of Police, were suspended in the resulting unprecedented action by the government, and the state Home Minister has also issued a strong statement in the case.

It emerges that though the AP Police registered the FIR on February 2, the verbal orders to arrest Jethwani, who was named in the suspension orders, were given on January 31 by P. Sitharama Anjaneyulu, the then Director General of Police (Intelligence) of the state police.

The orders by the General Administration Department of the state government of Andhra Pradesh on September 15 suspended Vishal Gunni, the then Deputy Commissioner of Police, Vijaywada, Kanthi Rana Tata, the then Commissioner of Police, Vijaywada and P. Sitharama Anjaneyulu, the then Director General of Police, Intelligence.

Jethwani, on Thursday September 19, met Vangalapudi Anitha, the Home Minister of Andhra Pradesh, and sought justice in the case. She also asked the minister to drop the cases filed against her in Andhra and for security in Vijaywada till the proceedings got over.

The Chandrababu Naidu government, which has been in power Andhra Pradesh since June, has promised a thorough probe in the matter which now involves an opposition YSCRP politician.