Mumbai Police arrest 10th accused in TRP scam

The crime branch of the Mumbai Police on Sunday arrested the 10th accused Abhishek Bhajandas Kolawade alias Amit alias Ajit, who worked as a vendor for television

The crime branch of the Mumbai Police on Sunday arrested the 10th accused Abhishek Bhajandas Kolawade alias Amit alias Ajit, who worked as a vendor for television channels, as part of its investigation into allegations of rigged television rating points (TRP). Kolewade was wanted as an accused and the Mumbai crime branch was searching him for the last 10 days. He changed his name and was staying in Karnataka and later Goa.

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Kolawade surrendered before the crime branch on Sunday evening on the advice of his advocate KH Giri. Kolawade used multiple mobile numbers registered using forged documents, including two in the name of arrested accused Umesh Mishra, said inspector Sachin Vaze of the crime branch.

“Earlier, we had arrested his close associate Harish Patil from Chandivali in Powai who was also working as a vendor, and Ramji Varma and Dinesh Vishwakarma, former employees of Hansa Research Private Limited. After questioning them, we learnt that Kolawade used to make payments to them for rigging viewership figures in favour of television channels,” the said crime branch officer.

“Kolawade will be confronted with Varma and Vishwakarma for further leads in the investigation. Varma, Vishwakarma and Patil are in police custody till October 26,” said Vaze.

Meanwhile, the crime branch has summoned CEOs of Maha Movie channel, Sandeep Varma and Amit Dave to be present at the crime branch office on Monday to join the investigation, said a crime branch officer.

“During the inquiry, we learnt that Patil had registered seven companies under various addresses in Mumbai, all in his name. It appears all seven companies were dummy firms and were used for financial transactions by channels. We are investigating the veracity of these companies and their links with channels and their financial transactions,” said Vaze. The authenticity of the seven firms was in doubt since the crime branch had found that a firm owned by Patil, named Capslock Digital Solution Private Limited, was a dummy entity. “We found there was no company registered to the given address,” said Vaze.

One of the five suspected channels had deposited money in Capslock Digital Solution, and Kolawade had withdrawn the amount and distributed it to others, including the arrested accused Umesh Mishra. The money was later given to households where barometers were installed, to increase TRP, added the crime branch officer. The alleged TRP scam came to light after the ratings agency Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) filed a police complaint alleging certain channels that it suspected were rigging TRPs to attract advertisers.