Hyderabad: At a posh bar in Jubilee Hills, the 28-year-old film technician was discussing his oncoming project with the director. This was his fourth meeting with the director, who belonged to a super-rich film family. The technician was discussing the final pre-production programme since the shoot was scheduled to start the next week. As the evening wore on, the director started getting tipsy. The discussion turned personal, and the director started bragging about himself.

He talked about his connections with biggies in Tollywood and his encounters with glamorous women in the industry. Then, he pulled out a small plastic packet from his trouser’s pocket. The technician saw a white substance. “He asked if I knew what it was. I said no. Then he told me it was cocaine. I did not believe him initially, because he was known as an upcoming director with a good family background,” said the technician. “It was my first film, and he was the one who brought me to Tollywood from the advertising firm I used to work with earlier. So I did not want to ask him anything more and annoy him.”

He told me that this was very common in the industry. He also dropped many names of big artistes and technicians, who constantly use of drugs. The increasing drug abuse among artists and producers is a cause for concern. Sources from the industry say in most of the weekend parties they attend, narcotic substances are used.

Ravi Teja's brothers Raghu and Bharat, ‘Facebook’ fame Uday, and Parinayam fame Abhishek Kumar were once in the dock and their Tollywood friends were also part of the loop, following a drug bust in Banjara Hills. But they secured bail and continued their parties and their indulgence with drugs till their names again came up in the Excise drug bust. Besides these B-listers, who do drugs in Hyderabad, there is also a breed of A-listers, who play safe by going to other states like Goa and Mumbai to consume drugs.

Calvin to reveal info on biggies:

Excise officials took drug peddlar Calvin Mascarenhas, whose arrest led to the cracking of a major narcotics racket, into custody for two days to interrogate him further. Investigators say they expect to collect more evidence against a number of personalities in the city. “Calvin will be in our custody till Sunday evening. We have several dots to connect. Questioning him and getting evidence against more suspects is an important part of the probe,” a senior official from the Excise department said.

After his arrest a fortnight ago, police could only interrogate him for a few hours because they had to sent him to judicial remand in a day. As per Calvin’s earlier confession, his initial sources of narcotics were from Goa. He later shifted to Hyderabad to work in a tech company and began using the ‘Silk Road’ on the internet to buy drugs. “That is when his customer base increased. With the help of his friend, he was able to reach many people in a short time,” an official said.

Besides Calvin, among those arrested since the racket was busted on July 2, were a US citizen, Dundu Anish, an aerospace engineer who had earlier worked with the NASA, and seven B. Tech graduates, most of whom were working for multinational companies. According to officials, Calvin’s gang catered to over 1,000 customers, including students of city-based schools and colleges, film producers and senior officials of multinational companies and employees of the IT firms in Cyberabad.