ED gets 7-day remand of Odisha honey-trap kingpin Archana Nag

BHUBANESWAR: A court here on Monday granted permission to the enforcement directorate (ED) to take Archana Nag, kingpin of the alleged honey-trap and sextortion racket, on seven-day remand for interrogation.
Nag, while being produced in the court, alleged she was framed by the commissionerate police in the false case and demanded a CBI probe to unravel the truth. While she was arrested by the Khandagiri police on October 6, the ED sought her custodial remand for interrogation in connection with a separate money laundering case.
“Police arrested me arbitrarily and put my family members under house arrest for several days. The police intimidated me to keep my mouth shut before the media and produced me in court stealthily on October 6. My face was covered with a cloth and my mouth gagged. So many lies and concocted stories are being spread against me. I want a CBI probe to elicit the truth,” she said outside the court.
Reacting to the allegations of her honey trap and sextortion racket, Nag said she did not extort money from anyone. “Where are the so-called victims? Why are they hiding? Why don't they come out and complain,” she asked.
Though film producer Akshaya Parija had lodged a complaint against Nag at Nayapalli police station accusing her of demanding Rs 3 crore extortion from him, Nag denied the allegation. “I neither demanded nor took any money from Parija. He is lying,” Nag said.
Some lawyers said she broke down inside the court and tried to draw the judge’s attention to her alleged harassment by the commissionerate police. “She started crying before the judge. The judge asked her to lodge her grievances through her lawyer,” a lawyer, who was present in the court, said.
Though mystery shrouded as to how Nag amassed huge assets, she avoided media queries outside the court. The ED already said that nearly Rs 2.5 crore was deposited in cash in the accounts of Nag and her husband Jagabandhu Chand, who have been accused of extorting huge money from many influential people by laying honey traps, between 2017 and 2022
The honey-trap case dropped a bombshell in the state as the opposition BJP and Congress have been accusing the ruling BJD of patronising Nag’s illicit business. The issue also dominated the proceedings of the assembly’s winter session where the opposition flayed the commissionerate police for having shielded the real culprits to save the BJD government and demanded chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s resignation. The BJD rubbished the charges.