New Delhi, September 7: A Week after his sting on a teacher’s purported sex racket, Prakash Singh, the reporter of Live India news channel, was today arrested. Singh, whose report aired on August 30 led to violence near the school in Daryaganj, has been charged with fabricating evidences, cheating and criminal conspiracy to show that Uma Khurana forced her girl students into prostitution.
The police though have not given a clean chit to Khurana yet — they said the Mathematics teacher can be booked for “abetment of procurement”, as she had convinced the girl shown in the sting to go with the reporter.
The police are also interrogating Tej Narayan Tiwari, driver of the cab in which the sting was carried out.
The police had yesterday arrested the girl shown in the sting, Rashmi Singh, remanded to judicial custody till September 15.
“There is no evidence or witness to prove that Khurana forced her students into prostitution after blackmailing them with their obscene pictures clicked clandestinely, as claimed in the sting,” a police officer said.
The police said Prakash knew Rashmi and the latter agreed to be part of the sting after assurance that he would help in her career (see box). What further damned the case for Prakash were statements made against him by Rashmi, the cab driver, and his previous employer (an English news channel that told police it had refused to air the same sting due to loopholes).
Rashmi’s lawyer R K Thakur today said she is a victim. “Prakash Singh and Arora (a businessman who reportedly had an axe to grind against Khurana) exploited her. He promised to make her associate crime reporter for the story but later threatened her. A complaint was registered in this regard at Daryaganj Police Station on September 2.”
Prakash has been charged under Sections 211, 192, 193, 420, 120 B of IPC. A senior police official said senior employees of Live India channel would most likely be interrogated on Saturday.
Meanwhile, channel CEO Sudhir Chaudhary said they aired the sting in “national interest”. “But the weak link was our reporter did not bring to our knowledge that the girl was his friend. We have issued him a showcause notice for this.” Prakash would be suspended if charges are proved against him, he said.
‘I had no motive’
Prakash, meanwhile, told Newsline over phone this morning that he did the sting to expose Uma Khurana. “I am innocent. Why would I implicate anyone?” he reacted over telephone. The 15-minute chat was interrupted by sobs from his end.
“I don’t know Rashmi Singh,” said Prakash, a native of Bokaro in Jharkhand. “She was introduced to me as Khurana’s student, and if you see the tapes you will know what Uma Khurana says over phone to me and Rashmi Singh.
“She took leave from school on July 19; you can check school records. The principal had said that they had received a complaint against Khurana.”
Prakash said he is ready to undergo brain-mapping and narco-analysis to prove his innocence.
He did not reveal his source, though he stood by the information about “Uma Khurana’s illegal trade”.
After completing a mass communication course from Jharkhand University in 2004, Prakash had come to Delhi the following year.
