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Madhya Pradesh Police file charge sheet in extortion case, name 7 accused
The charge sheet filed in the district court in Indore names seven accused including Abhishek Thakur who is absconding.
Madhya Pradesh police on Monday filed a charge sheet in the high profile extortion case that it busted in Indore in September, said district public prosecutor Akram Sheikh.
The charge sheet filed in the district court in Indore names seven accused including Abhishek Thakur who is absconding.
Several high-profile people including politicians and bureaucrats were said to be the target of the gang that allegedly used honey traps for blackmail, said a police official who was not willing to be named.
A special investigation team (SIT) headed by senior IPS officer Rajendra Kumar is probing the case.
“The SIT has mentioned in the charge sheet that as per its investigation so far the accused who include Arti Dayal, Shweta Vijay Jain, Shweta Swapnil Jain, Monika Yadav, Barkha Soni, driver Omprakash and one Abhishek Thakur tried to blackmail Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) engineer Harbhajan Singh,” Sheikh told reporters.
All the accused except Abhishek Thakur are in judicial custody, he said.
The honey trap and blackmail racket was revealed after Harbhajan Singh, an engineer with the IMC, complained to the police that he was being blackmailed for Rs 2 crore over objectionable video clips.
According to the district prosecutor the charge sheet runs into 390 pages. The accused have been booked under sections 370 (trafficking of person), 384 (punishment for extortion), 385 (Putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion), 389 (Putting person in fear of accusation of offence, in order to commit extortion), 467 (Forgery of valuable security, will, etc) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and also sections 66 (E) (Punishment for violation of privacy) and 67 (A) (Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form) of The Information Technology Act, 2000.
Harbhajan Singh had lodged an FIR with Palasia police station in Indore on September 17 that Arti Dayal and Monika Yadav demanded Rs 2 crore from him while threatening that they would make viral an obscene video in which he was seen. While Arti, Monika and their driver Omprakash were arrested in Indore on September 18 when they reached Indore from Bhopal to collect Rs 50 lakh as the first installment, the others except Abhishek were arrested from Bhopal the next day.
