National award winning actor held for prostitution

National award winning actor Swetha Basu Prasad was caught red-handed at a star hotel here a few days ago, along with a rich industrialist, for prostitution and was shifted to a rehabilitation centre.

Swetha entered movies as a child artiste in “Makdee” for which she won a national award. Swetha has also acted in “Iqbal”. Earlier, the young actor who starred in the hit Tollywood movie “Kotha Bangaru Lokam” was caught in a sting operation  while dealing with a client and a broker for spending a night with a businessman in his farm house.

Her movement was being closely monitored by the police who raided the Park Hyatt Hotel in the posh Banjara Hills area on Sunday and busted the flesh trade racket.

A case was registered against Swetha and she was sent to the Government Rehabilitation Centre for at least a month as per the orders of the Erramanjil Court. She was also sent for mandatory medical tests. Accepting her folly the actor said, “I belong to a traditional family. But I have made wrong choices.”

In her confessional statement, Swetha said that she was approached by a middleman named Anjaneyulu alias Balu at a function here a few months ago and was offered Rs 1 lakh per night.

Swetha accepted the offer due to her poor financial situation and also because of the declining number of offers in Tollywood and Bollywood. “I made three trips to Hyderabad and made money,” she said. In recent years, the film industry has witnessed several such arrests. Bhuvaneswari, a B-grade artiste, was arrested twice for running a prostitution racket in Chennai.

Aish Ansari, another B-grade star, was nabbed for being involved in a flesh trade in 2011. Yamuna, a Kannada actor was arrested by the Bangalore Police for her alleged involvement in a prostitution racket at the ITC Royal Gardenia, Bangalore, in 2011.

 Saira Banu, a small time actor was also caught during a raid at the Spring Heaven Apartments in Begumpet, Hyderabad, in 2010.