Drug accusations false, says actor Mamta Kulkarni

Former Bollywood glamdoll and actor Mamta Kulkarni, embroiled in a Rs 2,000-crore drug scandal in Thane, said on Friday that she was being framed by the police. She claimed she now leads the life of a ‘yogini’.

Mamta (44) and husband Vijaygiri Anadgiri Goswami aka Vicky Goswami alias Vicky, who faces an Interpol notice, is also wanted in the case involving the manufacture of ephedrine drugs.

“I am innocent of the accusations against me. I have never engaged in any act contrary to the principles of the Indian statutes and am a victim of highhandedness, crude, unprofessional and unethical conspiracy by the officers of the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States and Thane Police,” Mamta, based in Kenya, said in a statement issued through her lawyers in Mumbai.

She also made a plea to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju not to press for her extradition, and also pointed out that Jai Mukhi, one of the accused, had retracted his confessional statement.

At a press conference, Daniel Arshack, Mamta’s lawyer from New York, said the American agencies have developed a ‘tunnel vision’ and used cherry-picked intelligence to fit their theory to her case. The case against Mamta Kulkarni is so flimsy that it does not meet or even concur with the Indian standards of evidence and would not even get to the trial stage here, if she challenges the proceedings in the high court, said advocate Majeed Memon.