The Hindu : New Delhi News : Man arrested on extortion charge

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 14, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Man arrested on extortion charge

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, OCT. 13. The chief editor of a local "television news channel" has been arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi police for allegedly extorting money from a scrap dealer at Sarojini Nagar in South-West Delhi. The accused had allegedly threatened to inform the police about the "presence of explosives" in his shop.

Mohammad Naushad, a scrap dealer living in Sarojini Nagar, informed the police on Monday that a person, who introduced himself as Raj Narain Mishra and claimed to be the chief editor of "Rajdhani Samachar TV", had come to his shop on October 5 and October 9 and filmed the scrap lying around. He then called him up and threatened to show the film on television claiming that he had encroached on government land if he did not cough up Rs. 20,000, in addition to Rs. 5,000 per month. Also, he threatened that he would tell the police that there were explosives in his shop.

However, Naushad informed the police and was asked to fix a deal. Naushad negotiated with Raj Narain over the phone and the deal was fixed for Rs. 15,000. The money was to be handed over in the parking bay of Sarojini Nagar railway reservation centre complex. Accordingly, a Special Cell team laid a trap.

Around 7-15 p.m., Raj Narain reached the parking bay in his Maruti van. Naushad gave him Rs. 15,000 following which the accused was arrested. The police recovered a mobile phone, various identity cards, a video camera and the videocassette from his possession.

During interrogation, Raj Narain, a native of Ferozabad district of Uttar Pradesh and presently living at Devli Extension in South Delhi, told the police that he dropped out of college in the first year in his native place and began giving tuitions.

The police said Raj Narain came to Delhi in 1996. Initially, he joined a courier company in Paharganj and then joined a research company in South Extension. In the course of time he changed several jobs, never remaining at one place for more than a couple of months. In 1998, Raj Narain opened a kerosene shop which too closed down after running into loss for about three years. He then got a job in a news company in Maharani Bagh but left it after two months as the company failed to pay his salary. He got another job with one "Hindustan TV" of Jangpura as an assistant but again left the job after six months.

Finally, in May 2003, he set up his own "Rajdhani Samachar TV" and bought a video camera. He hoped that he would be employed by some television news channel but did not succeed. Then he contacted the local cable operators in Madangir, Satbari and Masoodpur and managed to get an hour-long slot on these networks. But he again sustained losses following which he allegedly decided to extort money in order to earn his livelihood.

Further investigations are on to ascertain if the accused had extorted money from others also.

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