The Hindu : National : Sting reporter remanded to two-day police custody

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Wednesday, Sep 12, 2007
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Sting reporter remanded to two-day police custody

Staff Reporter

Police likely to summon teacher for joining investigations
“Uma a victim not an accused”

NEW DELHI: A court here on Tuesday remanded Prakash Singh, the television reporter who carried out the fake sting operation on government school teacher Uma Khurana, to two-day police custody.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Alok Aggrawal remanded Prakash to police custody after he was produced before him by the Tihar Central Jail authorities.

The court granted permission to the police on Saturday to confront Prakash with Uma in court on Monday. However, Prakash could not be produced in court because of unexplained reasons. Subsequently the court asked the jail authorities to produce him before it on Tuesday.

Seeking police remand, the prosecution argued that Prakash needed to be confronted with Uma to ascertain a few facts that had come up during investigations and that without their confrontation the investigation would be incomplete.

The prosecution also told the court that the police needed samples of their voices for forensic examination in connection with the tapes.

Custodial interrogation

Defence counsel Murari Tiwari, however, opposed the police remand saying the police did not have any new evidence on record.

No new evidence

He told the court that no new evidence had come on record after his arrest. But the court allowed the prosecution plea saying Prakash’s custodial interrogation was required for further investigation.

As Uma was granted bail on Monday, the police are likely to summon her for joining investigations on Wednesday or Thursday.

While granting bail, the court said that Uma was a victim and not an accused. The sting operation purportedly showed Uma as pushing a school girl into prostitution.

A day after the sting was aired on a private TV news channel on August 30, Uma was targeted by an angry mob that turned violent outside Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya on Asaf Ali Road where she used to teach. The police arrested her under the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act.

However, during the hearing of her bail plea, the police said they had arrested her merely on the basis of the footage shown on television.

“To settle scores”

Subsequently the police arrested businessman Virender Arora, who was allegedly instrumental in the sting operation as he wanted “to settle scores” with Uma.

The police also arrested Rashmi who knew Prakash and had acted as the “victimised” school girl in the sting tapes.

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