People like Yasmeen Khan of Hothits and Umesh Kamat of Hotshots have ruined the OTT space in India, claims actor Rayya Labib

MUMBAI: Actor Rayya Labib who has done several shows on the OTT space, with more than 10 web series for platforms like Ullu, 9XRedHot, Kooku and others, while speaking to media persons in Mumbai on Thursday spoke about the Mumbai porn racket and said that people like Yasmeen Khan of Hothits and Umesh Kamat of Hotshots have ruined the OTT space in India.

Having worked for several OTT web series, she was commenting on the rejection of producer Yasmeen Khan’s bail by the Bombay High court.

“The aam aadmi considers OTT as porn and this is due to a few people only interested in ‘get rich quick’ who have changed the definition of bold and erotica into pornography. When I tell my family that I am working on an OTT web series, the first question they ask me is how many bedrooms scenes are there or how much vulgarity and boldness is there,” Rayya lamented.

Both Umesh Kamat who worked for a celebrity businessman and Yasmeen Khan who ran her OTT APP HotHits were arrested in February 2021 by the Property Cell of the Mumbai Crime Branch.

Umesh Kamat was recently granted bail by the Supreme Court of India in another pornography case registered by the Maharashtra Cyber department.

After obtaining bail in 2021, Yasmeen Khan is now on the run and wanted by the Mumbai police, as one more porn-racket-related fresh case was registered against her at the Charkop Police station.

The Dindoshi Sessions court last month rejected her Anticipatory Bail Application (ABA) and she applied for bail in the Bombay High Court, but her ABA was dismissed as ‘withdrawn’ by the HC.

Rayya who has worked with several OTTs in Mumbai said it is the producers who lure unsuspecting women to shooting porn by making tall offers.

“We are artists, we do shoot bold and even erotic films. There is a different between porn and erotica. We do not do pornography and that too hard core porn. These people (Yasmeen and Umesh) ruined the business, because today the OTT apps are considered as porn apps. There are several international apps in the OTT space like Netflix, Alt Balaji, Amazon Prime, etc. They do show bold content in their web series and films and sometimes also erotica, but never pornography,” Rayya said.