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Regular-article-logo Sunday, 22 June 2025

BLOWS IN A ROW FOR BOLLYWOOD 

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FROM ANAND SOONDAS Published 31.07.02, 12:00 AM
Mumbai, July 31 :    Mumbai, July 31:  Already staggering under the impact of the Sunjay Dutt tapes, Bollywood was dealt another body blow today when a sessions court sentenced to life imprisonment two star sons, Ketan and Vivek Anand, for hatching a conspiracy to kill actress Priya Rajvansh. In a court order that brought the curtains down on the sordid saga of greed in Bollywood, judge S.P. Nigam ordered police to immediately arrest Ketan and Vivek, sons of noted filmmaker Chetan Anand, to undergo the sentence along with their accomplices, Mala Choudhary and Ashok Chinaswamy. Rajvansh, the stunning heroine of Heer Ranjha, was found murdered in a Juhu bungalow on March 27, 2000. While the Anands have been sentenced for plotting the murder, their accomplices have been arraigned for executing it. The accused quartet has also been dealt additional sentences for tampering with the evidence and submitting false information in the court. Rajvansh's lawyer, Kiran Makasare, had been appealing for the death penalty to be read out to all the four accused as 'the former actress had been killed in a most brutal manner and that it was the rarest of the rare case'. The court, however, stopped short of delivering the death sentence, giving a trembling Bollywood fraternity some respite to introspect on its own sins. The Anands, not giving up their fight, have vowed to appeal against the sentence in a higher court of law. Though Bollywood kept mum during much of the trial, those in the know had little doubt why Rajvansh was killed. A lifelong companion of Chetan Anand, the actress had been willed a third of the late director's property after his death. It was a fight to deprive Rajvansh of her share in the Rs 10 crore bungalow and from the other few things left to her, including a car and a diamond ring, that culminated in her murder, the police have been alleging right from the day the murder took place. Along the course of the trial, witness after witness - there were 22 in all - narrated how in the last days of her life, Rajvansh was 'going through hell' at the hands of Ketan and Vivek. Rajvansh's friends came out with sordid tales of mental torture and abuse she had suffered at the hands of the Anands, who repeatedly told her that 'she was their father's keep and that now she would be theirs'. Mala, who had been working with the Anands for a decade, had also been told to harass and trouble Rajvansh, her friends and well wishers said in court. One of the star witnesses in the case, TV personality and Surabhi anchor Siddharth Kak, told the court at length what Rajvansh had told him about her strained relationship with the Anand brothers. 'She used to tell me that Mala used to harass her and that Ketan used to take the servant's side.' Kak had also deposed that most of the fights revolved around Ketan's refusal to sell the bungalow and give Rajvansh her share of the sale proceeds. The court also took note of the painful letters Rajvansh had written to director Vijay Anand, uncle of Ketan and Vivek, asking him to intervene and save her from killing herself. In one of the letters, Rajvansh wrote: 'Goldie Saab, as executor of Chetan Saab's will, I am asking you for help. There is nobody else I can turn to. Time is going by. I am getting older, it is a starkly lonely life. With no money, no work, no family you cannot conceive how I pass my time. Is this what I get after 35 years (of being with Chetan)? He could never see even a tear in my eye. I am only asking for what Chetan Saab wanted me to have. Please help me...'    
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