New Delhi: Chrisann Pereira, a Mumbai-based actor, had no inkling what lay in store for her when she landed at Sharjah earlier this month. Expecting to participate in an audition for a series, she was instead arrested for carrying drugs.
Behind the strange turn of events, Mumbai Police say, is a bizarre conspiracy hatched by a bakery owner, who allegedly wanted to avenge his “insult” by the actor’s mother.
Accused Anthony Paul’s sister, police said, lives in the same building as the Pereiras, and he often visited the complex.
According to Mumbai Police, Pereira’s mother had last year stopped Paul from attacking a stray dog. Coupled with another instance where she allegedly told him off for not wearing a mask during the second Covid wave, this incident left Paul seething and he decided to “fix the family”, they said.
Paul also allegedly framed four more people using the same modus operandi in the last one year, to seek “revenge”. While three of them have returned, one person is still languishing in a Sharjah jail.
“He would first trap these people by concocting a fake story and arrange for their travel to Sharjah. He would then plant the drugs, a few grams of opium, in their suitcase on some pretext or the other,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Mumbai Crime Branch) Krishnakant Upadhyay said.
“He would himself then call the police and the airport authorities to give them a tip-off about the passenger, share the details of the person and get the individual arrested,” the officer added. “He has done this to four people in the past, and this actor was his fifth victim.”
According to another officer of Mumbai Police, Paul “would also try to extort money from the victims’ family, saying that he knew lawyers in Sharjah”.
“He even demanded Rs 80 lakh from Chrisann’s mother,” the officer said.
While Pereira, who has appeared in movies like ‘Sadak 2’ and ‘Batla House’, has been behind bars in Sharjah since 1 April, Paul was arrested by the Crime Branch on 25 April.
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‘Audition for web series’
According to the unnamed senior Mumbai Police officer quoted above, Paul got in touch with his friend Rajesh Borate and asked him to call Pereira on the pretext of an audition for a web series in Sharjah.
Borate then allegedly called the actor, introducing himself as Ravi, a representative of a talent management company, and offered her an audition. When the actor agreed to travel, he allegedly gave her a memento, asking her to deliver it to a friend in Sharjah, the officer said.
Concealed inside the memento was opium, the officer added.
“He told the actor that he had booked a hotel and someone would meet her at the airport to receive her. He also told her to hand over the memento to him,” the officer said.
On April 1, when Chrisann Pereira reached Sharjah airport, nobody turned up to receive her. Since she had not received any information about the travel itinerary, the actor “became suspicious and called her father from the airport”.
“She realised that she had been duped. When she told her father about the memento she was asked to deliver, her father suggested that she approach the cops at the airport,” the officer said.
When she went to Sharjah police and narrated the story, the memento was checked, the officer added. After the drugs were discovered, she was immediately arrested, he said.
On receiving information about the arrest, the actor’s family went to a police station, where an FIR was registered. As the family’s claims were found to be true during investigation, the police arrested Paul and Borate, the police officer said.
Paul is believed to have told his interrogators that he was upset about the behaviour of Pereira’s mother Premila Pereira, who “insulted him when he tried to hit a dog who would not stop barking”.
He allegedly also said that, during the second Covid wave, she had once objected to him not wearing a mask. “He wanted to take revenge for the insult, and that is why he made a plan to fix Premila’s daughter,” the officer quoted above said.
‘Can’t believe he went to this extent’
Premila told ThePrint that she was “shocked” when she found out that Anthony Paul was behind framing her daughter.
She said that it was last year that she stopped him from hurling a chair at a stray dog that she fosters.
“That day, he came to visit his sister and it was late in the night. I take care of a stray in the area and go downstairs to feed her every night. That night, when he was entering the building, the dog started to bark, because she is protective. She did not bite, was just alerting the residents,” she told ThePrint. “But this man picked up a chair and charged at her.”
“I immediately intervened since I was there and had gone to feed the dog. I told him he cannot do that, which enraged him and he started misbehaving. There was only one watchman who was witness to all this.”
After hearing the altercation, Paul’s mother came downstairs and took him away, she said.
“I am an animal lover and I will raise my voice if I see such injustice. That day, his mother also told me that he has anger issues. But I can’t believe he went to this extent,” she said.
Premila added that, after the episode, they often exchanged greetings, saying she had forgotten the argument.
“He was a regular in the building. I thought I made him understand that he shouldn’t be behaving in such a manner with animals and he understood,” she said. “But no. He nursed a grudge and made my daughter suffer. I could never imagine he would do this. This is not normal.”
She added that she even visited his bakery often.
Reacting to the allegation that she objected to him not wearing a mask, Premila said she doesn’t even remember the episode.
“I may have said something because, at the time, Covid cases were rising, (and) we were all scared and the government had issued strict guidelines to follow the protocol,” she said.
‘My only concern is to bring daughter back’
It has been over 25 days since Pereira was arrested in Sharjah. The Mumbai Police is preparing a file to be sent to their Sharjah counterparts, to facilitate her release and return to the country. Police said the process to repatriate another of Paul’s alleged victims, identified as Cliton, had also started.
“We are trying to do our best to ensure that Chrisann and Cliton are brought back to India,” the officer said.
Premila, however, said she feels helpless.
“It has been 25 days since my daughter has been in jail for no fault of hers. I don’t know how long they will keep her and in what condition,” she added. “This is going to affect her mental and physical health. I spoke to her on the phone and she was very upset. She told me that the inmates laugh at her for being trapped. Just imagine what she may be going through. I feel so helpless.”
She said her lawyer had told her that this process will take a while. “But is this really justice done?” she added. “Every night must be a nightmare for her in that prison.”
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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