Actor Chrisann Pereira, held in Sharjah in drugs case, returns to Mumbai after release
Mumbai (PTI): Actor Chrisann Pereira, who was released by Sharjah authorities after being implicated in a drugs case, has returned to Mumbai, an official said on Thursday.
She will meet Mumbai Police Commissioner Vivek Phansalkar and other senior police officials later in the day, he said.
Pereira (27), who acted in Mahesh Bhatt-directed Bollywood movie "Sadak 2", was apprehended at the Sharjah airport on April 1 after drugs were found inside a memento which some persons had asked her to hand over to someone in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
She spent nearly a month in a prison in Sharjah.
During the probe into the case, it came to light she was framed by some persons, later arrested by the Mumbai crime branch, the official said.
The authorities in Sharjah had released her after the probe into the case, but she could not return here immediately due to some legal formalities.
After completion of the legal formalities, authorities in the UAE allowed the actor to leave for India.
Accordingly, the actor has returned to Mumbai, the official said.
After Pereira's arrest in the UAE, two of the accused, Anthony Paul and his friend Rajesh alias Ravi Bobhate, allegedly demanded Rs 80 lakh from her mother to arrange for her release.
The actor was released after the Mumbai Police sent case-related documents to authorities in the UAE.
The Mumbai Police in June filed a chargesheet against Paul, Bobhate and another person for allegedly framing Pereira in the drugs case.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
