Actress Sanchitha Padukone, who hails from the same village as Deepika Padukone though they are not directly related, was shocked recently to discover her image was being used recently to lure unsuspecting customers to an online brothel. When customers contacted the website, they would be offered women at rates ranging from Rs8000 to 10000, often of East European background – and of course looking nothing like the aspiring actress. “How can anyone upload my picture without my permission?” Sanchitha asks, “It is a criminal act. I will go to the police and have those pimps put behind bars.”
The trick, however, is all too common and many Bollywood actresses ‘feature’ as lures on Mumbai websites of a similar genre. “It’s like uploading your own picture on Orkut, Facebook or other social networking sites,” explains an IT expert, “With porn sites, posting someone else’s image is commonplace. One can trace the servers for these sites easily enough, but as most of these servers are in foreign countries, it’s virtually impossible to nab the real culprits.”
Sanchitha has appeared in Vettaikaran with Universal Hero Vijay and Anushka; and also in the Kannada movie Raavana. She is also in Pillaiyar Theru Kadaisi Veedu with Ramesh. She is full of praise for her co-star Yogi in Raavana, “I am sure my first Kannada film Raavana is sure to create ripples because of its story value and very good performance by Yogi,” she says, “Yogi has put in lot of hard work for the film and I could see his commitment during the shooting of the climax portions of the film.”
