Ranya Rao alleges custodial torture by DRI officer: 'Slapped, forced to sign blank pages'

Kannada actor Ranya Rao who has been lodged in a jail since she was arrested in a gold smuggling case, wrote a letter to the Additional Director General of DRI alleging that she has been a victim of custodial torture. Rao claimed she was being implicated in a false case and did not smuggle any gold. 

Accusing that she was beaten up and forced to sign 50 to 60  typed pages and around 40 blank pages, the actor said that she was also not allowed to sleep. Rao also claimed that the DRI officer threatened her that if she did not sign her father’s name would also be linked to the case. 

Rao is the stepdaughter of senior IPS officer Ramachandra Rao, who currently serves as the Chairman and Managing Director of the Karnataka State Police Housing and Infrastructure Development Corporation



Limited. 

She is presently lodged in the Parappana Agrahara Jail in Bengaluru. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) seized gold bars worth Rs 12.56 crore from Ranya at Kempegowda International Airport when she arrived from Dubai on March 3. 

In the letter, Ranya Rao alleged that an officer from Delhi implicated her to save some other passenger in the flight and she was taken into custody from inside the plane without informing anything.  Rao alleged that after being arrested on the evening of March 3, she was not allowed to sleep until she was presented before the judge the next day.

"I was not even permitted to have proper sleep or food. In fact the officers purposely denied me sleep. I was hit and slapped on my face for about 10-15 times by the officers whom I can identify," she added.