National

Sting case reporter sent to judicial custody

NEW DELHI: A court here on Saturday remanded Prakash Singh, reporter of Live India TV news channel, who is accused of staging a fake sting operation against government school teacher Uma Khurana, to seven-day judicial custody.

The Crime Branch of the Delhi police, which arrested Prakash on Friday evening, produced him before Magistrate Ajay Pandey, who remanded him to judicial custody.

The police then submitted an application seeking production warrants for Prakash and Uma, who is also in judicial custody, for Monday. The police intend to confront the school teacher with Prakash in the court. The Magistrate accepted the plea of the police.

Meanwhile, Live India’s chief executive officer Sudheer Chaudhary was questioned by the Crime Branch in connection with the sting operation which was aired by the channel on August 30. Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said Mr. Chaudhary was questioned for nearly 90 minutes. He told the police that the reporter concerned did not tell him that the tapes were manipulated. He said Prakash did not divulge that the girl used in the tape as a student of the government school was a friend of the reporter concerned.

In the aftermath of the sting operation, which alleged that the school teacher was forcing her students into prostitution, violence broke out on Asaf Ali Road near Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya where Uma used to teach. The police arrested her and accomplice Virender Arora.

Investigations revealed Virender, along with Prakash, was instrumental in the sting operation as Uma apparently owed him some money. Prakash also roped in a girl, whom he knew but who was neither into prostitution nor a government school student, as the school student alleging that Uma forced her into prostitution. She too has been arrested.

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