Actor who exposed Bangladeshi woman's fake identity says, ‘We were threatened’

The actor who exposed adult film actress Riya Arvind Barde allegedly a Bangladeshi national posing as an Indian and living in the country illegally detailed in a conversation with MidDay how he uncovered the truth about the woman he met during the shooting of a pornographic film in Virar during the COVID lockdown in 2020Incidentally Bardersquos Indian stepfather Arvind attempted to enter India via Nepal after flying in from Qatar but was intercepted by Nepal police and sent to Dubai He later returned from Dubai to Mumbai on January 31 was taken into police custody and subsequently handed over to the Thane police for further investigationThe actor lived in Versova while Barde resided in Ulwe and most of their shoots took place in Virar and Surat ldquoThe shooting would start at 7 am and sometimes continue till 2 pm It was difficult for her to commute from Ulwerdquo the actor recalled She eventually requested to stay at his Versova residence and he agreedHowever over time the actor grew suspicious of Barde ldquoFrom her conversations I sensed she was Bengali but her surname was Maharashtrian which made me question her identityrdquo he said ldquoMy doubts were confirmed when she asked me for 5 lakh claiming she needed the money to bring her aunts children from Bangladesh to IndiardquoShe admitted to being Bangladeshi when he directly confronted her about her nationality ldquoI told her to find another way to handle her situation But when I refused to give her money she started harassing my parents in Titwala She feared I would report her to the police about her illegal statusrdquo he explainedThe actor clarified ldquoI wanted to distance myself from her after discovering she was a Bangladeshi living here illegally I wasnrsquot refusing money out of spite but because I knew she planned to use it to bring people illegally from BangladeshrdquoDespite continuous harassment at his home and threats to his family the actor complained about Barde to the Titwala police informing them that she was a Bangladeshi national living illegally in India However to his shock the police did not act on his complaint and instead appeared to side with the womanIn a twist of events in April 2022 Barde filed a rape complaint against him at the Versova police station leading to his arrest ldquoI was jailed for about six months before being released on bailrdquo the actor statedAfter his release he tried to move on with his life and focus on work However the issue resurfaced when he received an Instagram message from a man living in Poland The message revealed that Barde had married the man lived with him for one to two months and then filed a dowry harassment case against him and his parents demanding 40 lakh as compensationldquoThis was the turning point for merdquo the actor said ldquoI realised that if I didnrsquot expose her she would continue to ruin more lives by trapping people in false casesrdquoThe actor knew that Barde possessed an Aadhaar card PAN card and passport and suspected they were obtained using forged documents He approached the Amravati police filing a formal complaint and requesting an investigation into her citizenship status and fraudulent activitiesContinuing his efforts the actor gathered information through Right to Information RTI queries ldquoThe documents I received including her birth certificate and gender certificate were all forged and issued from West Bengal The government departments concerned and the school in West Bengal confirmed this and even sent an official letter to the Amravati police regarding the fraudulent documentsrdquo he revealedFurther investigations via the ecourt portal uncovered that Barde had previously been arrested by the Mumbai Police in 2020 for prostitutionThe actor also shed light on Bardersquos background ldquoBarde is originally from Bangladesh Her mother a Bangladeshi citizen entered India with her three children including Riya She later married a Maharashtrian man Arvind Barde in Achalpur Amravati and manipulated the legal system to obtain Indian documentation for herself Riya and her two other children by misleading the courtrdquo he explainedThe truth came to light when Amravati police questioned the brother of Riyas Indian stepfather ldquoHe revealed that the children were not biologically related to his brother Arvind had married Riyas mother in 2013 but the children were from her previous relationshiprdquo the actor addedFollowing Riyarsquos arrest her siblings Ritu and Ravindra mother Anjali and stepfather absconded It is believed that Riyas mother and stepfather Arvind were residing in QatarIn another shocking revelation the actor disclosed that Riya had smuggled a young girl from Bangladesh to India forcing her to work as a domestic help ldquoAfter Riyas arrest her siblings disappeared and now even the whereabouts of that girl are unknownrdquo he saidThe Thane Crime Branch which is handling the investigation has issued a lookout notice for the absconding family members Recently the Thane Crime Branch arrested the man who posed as Bardes father to facilitate their documents in India The police had arrested Barde in the case but she jumped bail and is currently untraceable