The Daggubati family on Thursday denied reports that Abhiram, the younger brother of popular actor Rana Daggubati and the son of Tollywood producer Suresh Babu, was involved in an accident in Hyderabad and escaped without injuries. A statement was issued after media reports claimed that a car being driven by Abhiram crashed into another vehicle coming in the opposite direction in the city's Manikonda area.
Pointing out that the car involved in the accident did not belong to anyone in their family, the statement appealed to people not to believe in rumours. This is not the first time that Abhiram, who was expected to make his acting debut in the coming months, has found himself in the centre of a controversy.
In 2018, actor Sri Reddy had released intimate pictures of her along with Abhiram and accused him of extracting sexual favours from her, by promising to give her work. He was one of many prominent persons named by Sri Reddy in a sexual harassment row that shook the Telugu film industry.
Abhiram's brother, Rana Daggubati, was recently in the news after he married his girlfriend, Miheeka Bajaj in a low-key wedding ceremony at Ramanaidu Studios in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, on August 8. The event saw limited guests and family members, including well-known faces like Samantha Akkineni, Naga Chaitanya and Allu Arjun in attendance. Many others followed the wedding virtually through a video link.
The Daggubati family, which began with veteran producer Daggubati Ramanaidu, is one of the most powerful families in Tollywood and is also related to the Akkineni family. They own Ramanaidu studios in Hyderabad.
In 2017, officials from Telangana's Excise and Prohibition Department paid a visit to the studios in the city to check on a parcel that arrived for Rana, amid the Tollywood drug bust case. However, the family and investigation said that after the parcel was opened, the officials left as it was nothing out of the ordinary.
The sensational racket busted by authorities in 2017, found that about 1,000 students of leading private schools and colleges in Hyderabad were using high-end drugs such as LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) and MDMA (methylenedioxy-