The Banjara Hills police on Wednesday told a Nampally court that Tara Chowdhary, who was accused of forcing a young girl into prostitution, was using her photograph with late chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy to commit offences. The police sought a seven day custody of Tara Chowdhary and her live-in partner Ratineni Durga Prasad.Additional public prosecutor Lakshman Rao submitted to IIIrd additional chief metropolitan magistrate (ACMM) that it was not a simple case of prostitution. He said the accused was blackmailing her victims and customers. The prosecution told the court that custody was required to confront them with the evidence recovered from her house and to identify the others involved in the case.
However, Mr K. Srinivas, counsel for Tara Chowdhary argued that she was implicated in the case by the police. “She gave a large sum of money to one Chinni Krishna sometime ago. As he didn’t return the money she lodged a complaint against him. The police tried to settle the case by asking her to strike a compromise with Chinni Krishna. As she refused, they implicated her in the case,’’ defence counsel argued. The court posted the case to Saturday for further hearing and orders. It may be noted that Tara Chowdhary was arrested following a complaint by a 20-year-old sales girl from Visakhapatnam that she was forced into prostitution by Tara who had lured her by promising a job.
The police recovered five cellphones, a photograph of she handing over a bouquet to Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, PAN cards, a box of condoms and two sets of Home Guard applications. Tara had ambitions of becoming an actress. She managed to act in a few films as a junior artiste. She was staying at Navodaya Colony in Banjara Hills where she and her partner had been running a brothel clandestinely.
