Alia Bhatt's personal assistant arrested for financial fraud after complaint filed earlier this year

Alia Bhatt's personal assistant, Vedika Prakash Shetty, has been arrested for financial fraud and forgery. She had been under suspicion for a while, after a complaint filed earlier this year, on January 23, by Soni Razdan, Alia Bhatt's mother and actress-filmmaker. The complaint was filed with the Juhu police. Reports say the missing funds, drawn from Alia's and her production house's accounts, totalled close to Rs 77 lakh.

The fraud occurred between May 2022 and August 2024, and Vedika had generated fake bills that looked authentic with the aid of professional tools and managed to get Alia to sign them, citing reasons like travel and other expenses. Once Alia signed them, the funds were sent to the account of Vedika's friend, who then transferred them back to her. Vedika was arrested in Bengaluru five months after Soni Razdan filed the complaint.

As per a report in Hindustan Times, Vedika Shetty was employed as Alia's PA from 2021 to 2024, during which she managed the actress's schedules and financial transactions and related documents. More details are awaited as further investigation is being conducted on Vedika's bank accounts and financial records. Neither Alia nor her mother has issued an official statement in this regard.

Alia launched her production company, Eternal Sunshine Productions, in 2021, with Darlings being the first film bankrolled under the same. It was a co-production of Shah Rukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment, and starred Alia, Vijay Varma, Roshan Mathew and Shefali Shah.

Her other upcoming projects include Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Love and War, with husband Ranbir Kapoor and her Raazi co-star Vicky Kaushal, and Alpha, the next entry in Yash Raj Films' Spy Universe.

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