A still from film Matira Bandhana in which Seashore head Prashant Das has invested

Bhubaneswar, June 25: The Odia film industry is under scanner for wrong reasons. With the city police conducting a series of arrests of fraud deposit collectors, they found that many of them have produced Odia movies.

While film industry people say they are innocent, they do not deny that this is marring the reputation of the fraternity.

The crime branch yesterday seized two reels of forthcoming Odia movie Matira Bandhana as the fraud deposit collection company Seashore head Prashant Das had invested in it.

On Monday Saheed Nagar police arrested the producer of Odia film Chauka Chhaka Gayadhar Jena, also a realtor, on allegations of cheating people after promising them to provide land.

On May 27, the city police had arrested a former director of fraud deposit collection firm AT group Jagabandhu Panda, who was also a co-producer of Odia movie Daha Balunga that is in production stage. Producer Narayan Nayak, owner of Umamani Home creations, was arrested for cheating people on June 7.

These are instances of films in which the fraud deposit collection firms and real estate money had been invested. The money had been fraudulently taken from people who had invested in these companies after being lured of high interests or plots and houses.

In the last few months, both the crime branch and the city police had arrested over half a dozen people who had invested public money in films.

Director of Matira Bandhana (The Inheritance) Himanshu Khatua said that he was unaware of the source of income and integrity of Prashant Das, chairman-cum-managing director of Seashore group.

“Since he was associated with cultural, literary and many such activities and was involved in several projects with the government in public-private partnership mode, I thought he might have interest in serious filmmaking. Only now I came to know how he made that money. Many of my technicians, artistes and myself have not got our dues. When I tried to contact him for last few months he was untraceable before the production was over,” said Khatua.

He even said that as there was no money and the producer was missing, the censor certificate for the film also could not be collected though the post-production was over in January. Matira Bandhana was based on the short story The Trunk of Ganesh by eminent author Jayant Mohapatra.

The investigating officers are also trying to find out in which other films and related activities such dubious firms had invested. Sources said Prashant Das told crime branch officials of investing Rs 1 crore in Matira Bandhana. Police are also trying to get information about the money spent by Das’ company in bringing Bollywood actors Katrina Kaif in 2011 and Shilpa Shetty and Chunkey Pandey in 2010 for different events. Sources said Katrina had been paid around Rs 70 lakh while Shilpa around Rs 15 lakh and Chunkey was given around Rs 12 lakh.

Meanwhile film producers and directors criticised the involvement of such dubious characters in the industry though they gave a clean chit to artistes and technicians.

“The artistes should not be held responsible for the producers wrong,” said veteran film actor, director and producer Prashant Nanda.