Telugu filmmaker Bejjam Rajesh Putra held with illegal firearms

Hyderabad: A Telugu film director-cum-producer Bejjam Rajesh Putra, who also has several criminal cases registered against him, was today arrested after two country-made pistols and 16 live rounds were seized from him, police said.

Sleuths of Commissioner's Task Force (Central Zone), acting on a tip-off, raided the Putra's house at Jubilee Hills here and recovered illegal firearms and 16 live cartridges from his possession, they said.

Putra, a native of Eluru in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, was subsequently arrested, a senior cop said. "Rajesh Putra confessed that he brought the weapons from Bihar in 2010," Deputy Commissioner of Police B Limba Reddy said.

In the past, Putra had been involved in political activities and associated with different parties. He unsuccessfully contested 1998 by-election from Eluru Lok Sabha constituency, police said. He also faces as many as 11 criminal cases, most of them in Eluru, including murder and illegal possession of firearms, they said. Putra is an accused in the murder of a notorious history-sheeter P Ravi who was killed in the court premises in Eluru town in 2010, police said.

Putra later moved to Hyderabad, where he tried his luck in film industry, building on his previous experience as co-producer of Telugu film "Aunty Uncle Nandagopal" released in 2007. Recently, he produced Telugu films like "Nawab Basha", "Dawood" and "Sania" (proposed and to be directed by him), police added.