Mumbai: A 34-year-old Thane-based woman, an aspiring actress, has filed an FIR against a rich businessman Shyam Sunder Bhartia and three others of rape multiple times, criminal intimidation and offences under the Atrocities Act.

The FIR, of which the FPJ has a copy, was filed on February 22 against businessman Shyam Sunder Bhartia, Pooja Kawaljeet Singh, her husband Kawaljeet Singh, and their daughter Mallika Kawaljeet Singh. The accused have also been charged under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, for allegedly abusing the victim over her caste. The victim belongs to the scheduled caste.

According to the FIR, the complainant had been trying to enter the film industry for some time when she met producer Hashim Khan in 2022. Khan introduced her to Pooja Kawaljeet Singh, who claimed to have strong connections in the Bollywood. After Khan’s passing away in 2023, the victim decided to reach out to Pooja, who reportedly promised to help her secure a break in Bollywood.

With this promise, Pooja introduced the complainant to Shyam Sunder Bhartia on May 2, 2023. They first met at Taj Hotel near Santacruz airport, where Bhartia reportedly assured her help in achieving stardom. He then invited her and Pooja to his bungalow in Singapore. On May 9, 2023, Bhartia sent his personal credit card details via WhatsApp and asked her to book flight tickets for both herself and Pooja for a trip from May 18 to May 24, 2023, which she did.

On May 19, 2023 the complainant and Pooja travelled to Singapore, where Bhartia picked them up from the airport and took them to his house. According to the FIR, he engaged in casual conversation with them throughout the day. However, around 7 p.m., Pooja and Bhartia started drinking. When the complainant refused to drink, Pooja allegedly pressured her, warning that Bhartia would get angry.

After consuming the drink, the complainant began feeling dizzy. She alleged that Bhartia then brutally raped and physically assaulted her. “Instead of stopping the assault, Pooja recorded the entire incident. She later blackmailed me, threatening to release the footage if I spoke about the incident,” the complainant stated in the FIR. On May 24, she returned to Mumbai with Pooja.

Following the incident, Pooja allegedly continued to threaten the complainant and insisted that such situations were common in the industry. On June 26, 2023, the complainant was reportedly blackmailed into meeting Bhartia at ITC Maratha Hotel near Sahar international airport, where she was allegedly raped again .

“On October 14, 2023, I was called to Pooja’s home in Badrinath Towers, Versova, where Bhartia raped me again in her bedroom. Later the same day, he sexually assaulted me once more at Taj Lands End Hotel in Bandra. Similar incidents occurred multiple times at different locations,” the FIR states.

On January 11, 2025, while the complainant was at her Thane residence, Pooja allegedly called her multiple times and verbally abused her. The complainant further alleged that Pooja’s husband, Kawaljeet Singh, and their daughter, Mallika Singh, also threatened her and used caste-based slurs. They reportedly claimed that no police station would register a case against them.

Since her efforts to file an FIR against Bhartia and others failed, the victim then filed a criminal writ petition on February 5, 2025 through her advocates Mohammed Ahmed Shaikh and Sofiya Shaikh before the Bombay high court with the prayer that the Thane police be directed to register her FIR aganist the accused persons. The victim is a resident of Thane and hence the direction was issued to Thane police.

Following this, the Kapurbawdi police have booked the accused under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including rape and criminal intimidation, along with stringent provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.