Bengaluru: Party host known to Ragini Dwivedi held; drugs seized from flat

BENGALURU: CCB police probing a drug racket with Sandalwood links on Sunday arrested Srinivas Subramanian alias Sri from his Sahakarnagar flat. They seized 13 ecstasy tablets, 100 grams of ganja, 1.1 grams of MDMA and 0.5 gram of hashish from his residence.
According to police, Sri is a business partner of Vaibhav Jain, a bullion trader arrested recently in the drugs case.Sri and Vaibhav own several villas and farmhouses on the outskirts of Bengaluru, including near Devanahalli and Kanakapura. They gave them on lease or rent. The duo also organised parties there on weekends and allegedly supplied drugs to the attendees.
Ravi Shankar, a second-division clerk with Jaynagar RTO, had revealed Sri’s name in his statement before police. Sleuths took up a case based on Shankar’s statement and arrested several suspects, including actors Ragini Dwivedi and Sanjjanaa Galrani, event organisers Viren Khanna and Rahul Thonshe, Vaibhav Jain and others.
RTO official’s statement revealed link with actor
Shankar in his statement before KC Gautham, an assistant commissioner of police (CCB), stated that Sri and Jain are business partners. “Sri has houses called ‘Weekend Homes’ on the outskirts of the city. Jain organises parties in those houses and supplies food, liquor and drugs there. Ragini knew Sri and his wife Sonal. Ragini used to visit Sri’s house,” he had said.
A police officer, who is part of the investigations, said Sri was one of the main sources of drugs for Ragini. Sandeep Patil, joint commissioner of police (crime), confirmed the arrest of Sri and said: “One of the actors in custody had visited his flat three to four times in the last few months.”
CCB sources confirmed the actor is Ragini.
According to police sources, Saturday’s questioning of TV host Akul Balaji and actor Santosh Kumar too pointed to Sri’s role in organising parties.
“Sri has his own team of employees to arrange the premises for parties hosted by him along with Jain. Sri would rent out his premises to the public to spend weekends. But he also allegedly organised drug parties,” a police officer said.
According to sources, Sri claimed that the drugs seized from his flat had been kept for his own consumption. But police are continuing probe to know their source and Sri’s association with the accused persons already arrested and the others named in the FIR.