An erstwhile member of Alia Bhatt's team, Vedika Shetty, has been arrested on charges of defrauding the actress of Rs 76,90,892, taken from her production house, Eternal Sunshine Productions Private Limited, as well as from her personal accounts.
The fraud was reportedly committed over a period of two years, between May 2022 and August 2024.
While Alia said she would rather not speak about this "shocking betrayal," a very close friend of hers spoke to this writer on her behalf. "Alia wouldn't even have known about it. She has no idea of how her finances work. It was her mother (actress Soni Razdan) who raised the alarm. Alia's first reaction was to let the offender go. In fact, some years ago, a similar crime was committed by a female employ at Dharma Productions. Karan Johar took no action against her. He simply asked her to leave. Alia would have done the same were it not for her mother."
Most of the financial irregularities were related to Eternal Sunshine Productions, which Alia launched in March 2019.
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