Vinod Verma
Vinod Verma
Ghaziabad/Raipur, PTI: Senior journalist Vinod Verma was arrested early on Friday from his Ghaziabad residence by the Chhattisgarh Police on charges of extortion.
As many as 500 porn CDs, around Rs 2 lakh cash, pen drive, laptop and a diary were seized, the police said.
Verma, who had earlier worked with BBC Hindi service, was picked at 3.30 am from Mahagun Mansion Apartments in Indirapuram by the team of Chhattisgarh Police with the help of Ghaziabad Police, Senior Superintendent of Police H N Singh said.
A case of blackmail and extortion has been registered against the journalist at Pandri police station in the Raipur district of Chhattisgarh, Singh said.
"A man named Prakash Bajaj had lodged a complaint at Pandri police station in Raipur that he was being harassed over the phone by an unidentified caller, who told him that he had a CD of his master," Raipur DySP Sanjeev Shukla said.
The caller also threatened that if he was not given what he asked for, he would distribute the CD, Shukla said.
The official said search teams were sent to Delhi to trace the journalist.
"During the probe, the police came to know about a shop where the CD in question was copied. The shopkeeper told the police that Vinod Verma made 1,000 copies of the CD," Shukla said.
When the police came to know about Verma's involvement in the case, they contacted their Ghaziabad counterparts and arrested the journalist from his house, besides recovering the CDs and other material.
Verma has been booked under the Information Technology (IT) Act, police said.
As the news of the arrest spread, many senior journalists from electronic and print media gathered outside the Ghaziabad police station.
Aam Aadmi Party leader and former journalist Ashutosh termed the development an "attack on the press".
In a tweet to the Uttar Pradesh Police, the journalist-turned-politician said Verma was arrested in a "mysterious" way and that the move amounted to an attack on press freedom.
The Chhattisgarh Police will produce the journalist in a court in Ghaziabad later on Friday.