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They make money through blackmail Law & order

Incidents of unscrupulous elements making a fast buck by posing as journalists have been on the rise in Bangalore.

A man who posed as a reporter of a national English daily and attended a press conference was caught on Friday. He was handed over to the High Grounds police who let him off with a warning.

While several such instances go unreported, the police have arrested nearly a dozen persons who posing as journalists extorted money from officials, businessmen and doctors.

Some time ago, following a complaint by a senior official of the Department of Women and Child Welfare, the Vidhana Soudha police arrested Ramalinga Reddy, editor of “Voice of Lokayukta” on charges of blackmailing government officials. A few days before Reddy was apprehended, the Silver Jubilee Park police arrested a man who tried to blackmail the Director of the Department of Kannada and Culture by claiming himself as a reporter of an English daily. Blackmailing officials, getting the accused in criminal cases released and preventing registration of cases in police stations have been the main channels from which these phoney journalists have been making money.

In one such case, the Basaveshwaranagar police in May 2001 arrested a fake reporter, Mahesh alias Maheshwarappa, who had allegedly taken Rs. 2,000 from an accused in a motorcycle theft case, assuring him that he would get him released from the police station.

A few years ago, Sreesha Kumar, a postgraduate in statistics, went to the Hanumanthanagar police station claiming he was a reporter of this very paper, and even flashed a fake identity card.

Sreesha Kumar had tried to pressure the police into not registering cases relating to a dowry harassment and property dispute after taking money from an accused.

Similarly, the Jnana Bharati police arrested Ganesh alias Ganesh Iyer, who pretended to be a reporter of The New Indian Express and asked for money from a doctor promising that he would write an article about his hospital.

According to the police, Ganesh had cheated some business establishments also in the same manner.

Such instances have not only soiled the image of the media in Bangalore, but also thrown light on how government officers, mainly police officials, freely mingle with conmen in the garb of journalists without verifying their credentials and motives. For instance, Mahesh, who was arrested by the Basaveshwaranagar police, used to frequently call on one particular Police Commissioner at his office. When senior police officers themselves entertain such unscrupulous elements, the lower-level officials tend to interact with such persons and also grant them favours, said a Deputy Commissioner of Police.

As reporters normally have easy access to senior officers and Ministers, the police officers at the station level are often not willing to antagonise journalists. Knowing this well, fake journalists approach officers with various demands, and on many occasions get them fulfilled.

Officers, unaware that the person who has approached them is a fake, fear that some reports against them may appear in the newspapers and thus grant favours, says an officer who once fell prey to an impostor’s guiles.

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