A leading Kannada actress and an event organiser were arrested on Friday in connection with a drug racket bust in the city that has thrown up political and movie links.

Police arrested actress Ragini Dwivedi, 30, and event organiser Viren Khanna after questioning them through the day over alleged links with drug peddlers, Karnataka police’s central crime branch said. The two have been sent to four days’ police custody. Karnataka police officers had picked up Khanna from his native Delhi and brought him to Bangalore.

CCB officers raided the north Bangalore apartment of Ragini, who has also acted in Malayalam and Telugu movies and had made a special appearance in the Hindi film R… Rajkumar, early on Friday after she failed to honour a call for questioning the day before. They also searched the premises.

Ragini’s name had been found in the call records of a government clerk arrested last week on drug peddling charges, sources said.

Ragini, 30, who was not allowed to make any phone calls, was driven to the CCB office in Bangalore where she was questioned in the presence of senior women officers.

Her questioning follows the arrest of Ravishankar, a clerk at the regional transport office, and a real estate developer named Rahul. Both of them are said to have links with several Kannada film stars.

On Thursday, Ragini had refused to appear personally for questioning by the CCB.

“My advocates have presented themselves before the police, have explained my difficulty in not being able to appear today and have sought time. I am committed to appear on Monday morning before the police,” she had tweeted on Thursday.

CCB officials have seized Ragini’s mobile phones and laptops that will be sent for a forensic examination.

Bangalore police commissioner Kamal Pant told a news conference on Friday that cops had been tracking the drug network for a month.

“The CCB has been following leads on drug peddling. Then we got information about a government employee being a regular participant at parties and that his close contacts were some film actors,” Pant said.

“When we finally got him, we found he is a clerk at the RTO in Jayanagar (in Bangalore) and that he used to supply drugs at these parties,” the officer added, referring to Ravishankar.

“Based on the revelations made by him, we started our second layer of investigation,” Pant said, adding that more people were being summoned for questioning.

The officer said lot of information had emerged during the interrogation of Rahul. “He is into real estate and has regularly travelled abroad to attend such parties,” Pant said.

But the police commissioner refused to give more information when asked if another popular actress believed to be close to Rahul would also be questioned.

“I cannot disclose anything more since the investigation is on,” Pant said.

The Narcotics Control Bureau had raided two premises in Bangalore on August 21 and seized a large quantity of party drugs and arrested the suspected kingpin, Anikha D, and alleged drug peddlers Anoop Mohammed and Rijesh Ravindran.

Filmmaker Indrajit Lankesh, brother of slain journalist Gouri Lankesh, had earlier spoken to the media and the police about rampant drug abuse in the film industry. Indrajit has named 15 actors and actresses in his deposition before the police.