Noida police nabs four journalist under gangster act, 1 other absconding declared wanted

Greater Noida (24/08/2019) : Noida Police today nabbed four ‘so called journalists’ after registering a case against five people accused of being involved in extortion.

According to a statement by police , the accused used to ask for money by pressuring government officials and would attempt to influence cases through their news websites.

One of the accused is still on run and Noida SSP Vaibhav Krishna had put a reward of 25 thousand for providing the information regarding him.

Two of the arrested journalists have also been arrested in a similar incidents and currently were out on bail.

Addressing media persons after the arrest, District Magistrate BN Singh stated that the administration is now planning to attach their properties as well as part of the probe in lieu of large scale corruption done by them”.

“In the name of journalism they are making illegal money by pressuring administrative officials. Police have arrested them under gangster act and Sushil Pandit Prima Facie seems to be the mastermind of the gang,” the district collector added.

As per the press note released from the district administration, the arrested accused were influencing the witnesses in a case against them by putting fake news on various portals and social sites operated by them.

SSP Vaibhav Krishna said, “Their Modus Operandus was to write anything baseless on social media about officers who were not addressing their vested interests and they were in habit of blackmailing them by writing false stories.”

Sharing an example he said, “they wrote about me that I have relationship with a Samajwadi Party leader and that is why I am posting certain police personnel as SHO. Similarly they wrote baseless stories about other officers including present SSP Lucknow, present SP Barabanki, present Comdt 49 PAC, CO Sahibabad in Ghaziabad & many other Officers.”

“One accused (Raman Thakur) has a criminal case related to Cheating/Arms Act/IT Act in 2015 also. So in all, four have previous Criminal Record against them. Out of them, Chandan Rai was booked in Bike Theft case in 2007 at PS Sahibabad, Ghaziabad and Bike was recovered from him,” the SSP said

However the arrested journalists refuted all the allegations and claimed: “we are ready to provide all the evidence of our news reports published over websites. This is totally unfair some of us don’t have even a single FIR on us and now we are arrested under gangster act”.

Three cars including a Fortuner Car was seized from one of the accused named Chandan Rai. The arrested accused were identified as Udit Goyal , Sushil Pandit , Chandan Rai , Nitesh Pandey while the fifth accomplice Raman Thakur is yet to be arrested.