Two men, including a support staff member of Zoya Akhtar (on left in picture above) and Reema Kagti’s (on right in photograph) office, were arrested on May 25 for the alleged theft of 66 hard disks worth Rs. 13 lakh from their office at Bandra in Bombay. The staffer, Mohammad Shahid Khan, had worked at Zoya and Reema’s Tiger Baby Digital, for the past seven years. The other arrested, Ritesh, had allegedly purchased the stolen disks from him.
The police filed an FIR on May 24 based on a statement by an executive assistant working at the office. According to the FIR, the production company stores data of film and advertisement shootings in hard disks. The complainant said, she had placed all the hard disks in proper order in the office cupboard in November 2025. Thereafter, Mohammad Shahid Khan was asked to fetch the disks whenever they were required. On May 21, other employees working in the production office asked Khan to fetch a particular hard disk, which he couldn’t get. The complainant then checked the cupboard and discovered that some of the boxes in which hard disks had been kept were partially burnt. The boxes did not contain the hard disks. It was also noticed that there was no burn mark on the cupboard.
An audit was then performed, which led to the discovery that 66 hard disks were missing, some of which contained data from films, OTT shows and commercials shot by the production house.
As per the FIR, Khan admitted to stealing 24 hard disks over the past five months and selling them to Ritesh. However, Khan did not admit to the theft of the rest.
Zoya told Information, “We luckily had everything backed up. Besides, the stolen hard disks contained material which had already been released. No unreleased stuff has been stolen.”
