Accused claimed to be a member of the Chhota Rajan gang.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: The Mumbai Crime Branch arrested today a waiter working in the city, who claimed to be a member of the Chhota Rajan gang, and allegedly tried to extort money from the popular Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit-Nene threatening to kill her children.
The man, identified as Praveen Kumar Kamaleshwar Pradhan, 23, is a resident of Andheri in Mumbai, and works at a Udipi hotel in his neighborhood, and hails from Chhattisgarh, reported mid-day.
The cyber branch of the Mumbai police apprehended the accused, who had sent several threatening text messages to Dixit-Nene’s personal assistant, and was deliberating on the amount to be given to him.
According to police, Dixit-Nene’s personal assistant on November 28 approached the cyber cell alleging she had received four threatening text messages on her mobile phone from an unidentified person at about 3 AM on November 25, the mid-day report said.
The police said the accused had already messaged numerous actors with threats and was planning to demand money after a while. He claimed to be a member of the underworld Chhota Rajan gang.
The accused had got the numbers of managers/personal assistants of Bollywood film stars through a magazine, according to the police.
India.com reported that the accused had apparently said in his messages that he was training some 15-year-old teenagers to kill Dixit-Nene’s kids if his demands are not met. He is also alleged to have said that he would send some men to her house to collect an unspecified amount of money.
Dixit-Nene, 47, considered one of the greatest film actresses of Bollywood, is married to Dr. Shriram Madhav Nene, a cardiovascular surgeon based in Los Angeles, California. They have two sons, Arin, 11, and Rayaan, 9. After she got married in 1999, she had relocated with her husband to Denver, Colorado, for almost 10 years, before the call of films again drew her back to India.
Dixit-Nene is now settled with her family in Mumbai, since 2011. This year, she had two films released: Dedh Ishqiya and Gulab Gang.