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The Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh has set up a new SIT on Tuesday (1 October) late night in the controversial 'honey trap' case which allegedly involves high-profile politicians and bureaucrats.
The SIT team has now been reduced to 3 police officers from 10, although the government order says that the SIT can take assistance from other police officers as and when required. The new team will be headed by Special DG (Cyber Cell) Rajendra Kumar who has replaced Anti-Terror Squad Chief Sanjeev Shami.
The IPS Association is still looking into the complaint filed by Officer B. “We generally don’t look into individual complaints and might forward it to some competent authority. But we haven’t decided on that yet,” said Vijay Yadav, chairman of IPS Association.
Sanjeev Shami is considered to be an honest and upright police official. Many police officers feel that whatever little hope they had with the probe of the murky honey trap case has now died with Shami's removal.
Five women, Shweta Vijay Jain, Shweta Swapnil Jain, Barkha Soni Bhatnagar, Aarti Dayal and Monica Yadav were arrested by the police on 18 September for the alleged blackmailing of politicians and bureaucrats. Police has made Monica Yadav an approver in the case.
Officers close to the investigation told The Quint that it is a mammoth probe which includes transcription of over 1,000 calls of five accused which were intercepted over a period of two months.
The Quint had reported on 30 September that the alleged sex racket gang was under surveillance after the sex videotape of a senior IAS officer was leaked around 30 July.
The Quint has learnt from police sources that there are 30 sex videotapes of a BJP leader, and 27 sex videotapes of a Congress leader.
We have also learnt that another senior BJP former state minister allegedly went to Nepal for 20 days with one of the accused.
The Quint was also told that during the interception, it was found that one of the accused Shweta Swapnil Jain frequently visited Vallabh Bhawan. The building houses the chief minister, ministers, chief secretary, principal secretaries, deputy secretaries and other officers.
The sex videotapes of the bureaucrat whom Shweta Swapnil visited in the secretariat have also surfaced during the investigation, said sources.
The Quint accessed the names of 5 BJP leaders, 2 RSS leaders, 3 Congress leaders, 4 serving IPS officers and 7 serving IAS officers – of which 2 are very senior officers – one retired IAS officer and two journalists, out of which one is based out of Delhi.
An internal report was prepared by the SIT and submitted to the CM Kamal Nath. Sources have confirmed that a few names of politicians and bureaucrats have already been removed in the report.
The honey trap gang would allegedly contact influential people on the pretext of getting contract and aid for their NGOs and later trap them by meeting them in private and making obscene video through spy cameras. The police is looking for women who were allegedly lured by the gang on the pretext of jobs and forced into prostitution.
The case has been registered under the Human Trafficking Section 370 of IPC which can lead to rigorous punishment for a term of not less than 10 years. The offence includes any act of physical exploitation or any form of sexual exploitation. The consent of the victim is immaterial in determination of the offence of trafficking. The police is also probing the benefits passed on by the politicians and bureaucrats to the gang to establish quid pro quo.
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