Cuttack, Aug. 24: The police commissioner of the twin cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar, B.K. Sharma, today said police investigating into the Asima suicide case have busted a pornography racket with the arrest of her lover, Astaranga Sahoo.

Astaranga, an engineering student in Berhampur, was arrested today, though the police have been questioning him for the past two days after seizing a pornographic film CD involving him and the girl who had committed suicide.

Disclosing this to the reporters here today, the commissioner revealed that their investigations have shown that the CD was shot “late last year” and copies were released to the market from “January onwards in this year”.

Copies of the CD had entered the porn film market in Calcutta by February.

Sharma said: “On close examination, it seems that contents of the CD was captured without the knowledge of the girl.

But, there was prima facie case evidence that the contents of the CD were shot on full knowledge of the boy and he was a beneficiary of a substantial amount from the trade in the porno film.

He said a prima facie case of blackmail has also been found against the boy.

The police commissioner, however, admitted that investigations were still in a nascent stage and the forensic tests to rule out possibility of tampering were yet to be conducted.

Besides, the computer or the related hard disc on which the master copy of the CD was made — is yet to be traced.

The body of Asima Mohanty, a 22-year-old mass communication student was found hanging from a ceiling fan at her house in Khannagar on August 18.

The alleged suicide created controversy a few days later when her father lodged an FIR at the Madhupatna police station, where he stated that his daughter had committed suicide after a pornographic CD, featuring her, was circulated in the market.

Though the film was shot and circulated more than six months ago, the racket surfaced a month ago when some youths watching the CDs in the city identified the girl and its report reached the girl.

It’s learnt that the boy had named certain youths during interrogation.

One of them has already been taken into custody, but the police are tight-lipped about it.