Sarja's cousin files extortion plaint against Sruthi

Multi-lingual actor Arjun Sarja’s cousin filed a complaint against Sruthi Hariharan accusing her of conspiring with others to tarnish his and his family’s image. Shiva Arjun Sarja, cousin of Arjun, also accused her of creating a fake Facebook account of Arjun. He also filed an application seeking injunction restraining Sruthi from speaking anything against Arjun.

Shiva Arjun Sarja met city police commissioner T Suneel Kumar on Thursday and on his instructions, the cyber crime police lodged an FIR against Sruthi and others.

Shiva, in the complaint alleged that Sruthi, along with others, entered into a criminal conspiracy with others to malign the image of the actor on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp with an intention to extort money. He also alleged that fake accounts were created in the social media by using Arjun’s personal information and uploading derogatory posts.

The FIR has been registered against Sruthi and others under 120b (criminal conspiracy), 385 (putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 109 (punishment of abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment) 419 (punishment for cheating by personation) 114 (abettor present when offence is committed), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of IPC. She was also booked under the Information Technology Act 2000. She was booked on the series of incidents reported between October 20 to 25.

Arjun also filed an application seeking the injunction against Sruthi restraining her from speaking anything against Sarja. The matter is likely to come up for hearing before the city civil and sessions court on Friday. However, Sruthi refused to reply to repeated calls and messages by the DH.