New Delhi: Chhattisgarh Police arrested former BBC journalist Vinod Verma from his Ghaziabad residence on Friday morning over charges of blackmail and extortion.
As many as 500 porn CDs, around Rs 2 lakh cash, pen drive, laptop and a diary were seized from the journalist's residence during raids, police said.
Verma was picked up at 3.30 am from Mahagun Mansion Apartments, Vaibhav Khand, Indirapuram by a team of Chhattisgarh Police with the help of Ghaziabad Police, Senior Superintendent of Police H N Singh said.
Vinod Verma managed to speak to the media after his arrest and said, "This is nothing but a political witch-hunt as I have the sex tapes of a Chhattisgarh minister."
A case of blackmail and extortion has been registered against the scribe at Pandri police station in Raipur district of Chhattisgarh. He was allegedly blackmailing Chhattisgarh PWD minister Rajesh Kumar over his sex tapes.
"A man named Prakash Bajaj had lodged a complaint at Pandri police station in Raipur that he was being harassed over phone by an unidentified caller, who told him that he had a CD of his master," Raipur district Superintendent of Police, Sanjeev Shukla, told PTI.
Chhattisgarh Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel came to the aid of Verma and said that the BJP is trying to protect its minister and is trying to frame an innocent journalist.
Raipur IG addressed the media on Friday morning and said, "The accused was blackmailing people with this one CD. The person who had made this CD led us to Verma."
Asked on the contents of this CD, the IG said, "Investigation is underway. We can't reveal the details but contents of the CD violate Section 67 of IT Act."
Senior journalist friends of Vinod Verma, who accompanied him to the police station after his arrest, said that he was arrested for the possession of a CD. Police have allegedly seized over 500 CDs of sex tapes from his residence.
A six-member Chatisgarh Police team had come to Verma’s residence in Ghaziabad’s Indirapuram with an arrest warrant in a case registered at Raipur’s Padri Police station.
Although initial reports suggested that it was a joint operation by the Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh Police forces, UP Police later clarified that it had "nothing to do with it".
Unconfirmed reports suggested that Verma, who in the past has worked with Amar Ujala and the BBC, was planning a sting operation against a senior Minister in the Chhattisgarh government.
(With agency inputs)
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