After lending a helping hand to stranded migrant labourers and COVID-19 warriors, 48-year-old engineer-turned actor Sonu Sood, known for his roles in films such as Singh is Kinng, Simmba, and Happy New Year, has once again proved to be a messiah for the needy by mortgaging eight of his Juhu properties to raise a Rs 10 crore loan.
According to registration documents available, the actor has mortgaged two shops located on the ground floor and six flats in the Shiv Sagar CGHS in Juhu. The building is located along AB Nayar Road, near Iskcon Temple in Mumbai.
The flats include one unit each from the first to the sixth floor of the building.
The lender is Standard Chartered Bank.
The agreement was signed on September 15 and was registered on November 24, according to the document accessed by Zapkey.com.
As per the documents, a registration fee of Rs 5 lakh was paid to raise the Rs 10 crore loan.
The properties are jointly owned by Sonu Sood and his wife Sonali and have now been mortgaged in favour of Standard Chartered Bank.
A response on queries about the development is awaited from the actor.
Real estate experts point out that this is a loan raised against property and typically attracts an interest of 12-15 percent per annum, which is higher than a housing loan. The actor would also have to service both the interest and principal on this loan. Such loans are generally for a 10-15 year period.
The actor had earlier shot into the limelight for providing meals to the underprivileged and offering transport facilities to stranded labourers to return to their hometowns after the lockdown. A toll-free helpline number was put in place by him for migrant workers to send in their requests.
He had also helped some of them get home by arranging buses and trains and even organised air tickets for them.
Sood had funded a chartered flight operated by AirAsia India to help fly over 170 migrant workers to Dehradun in Uttarakhand from Mumbai. Earlier, he had arranged a special chartered flight for 167 migrant workers stuck in Kerala to help them reach their homes in Odisha.
The actor had also donated personal protective equipment (PPE) to frontline healthcare personnel. Sood had reportedly given away 1,500 PPE kits to paramedics across Punjab, and also donated 25,000 face shields to police officers in Maharashtra.
He had also helped organise a chartered flight for a group of Indian students stranded in Kyrgyzstan. About 135 students safely landed in the Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport (Varanasi) in July this year.
The actor has been conferred with the prestigious SDG Special Humanitarian Action Award by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for his efforts.
