Suspects hired B’luru-based IT firm, says police

BHOPAL: The alleged extortion racket busted in Madhya Pradesh last week, which used to blackmail top bureaucrats and politicians after discreetly recording their sexual escapades, had hired a Bengaluru-based software firm to store over 1,000 audio and video clips as well messages in “safe” servers, a police official involved in the probe said.

A special investigation team (SIT) of the Madhya Pradesh police is investigating the alleged extortion racket or what is being called the “honey trap” scandal. Close to 50 people, including political leaders and bureaucrats, were allegedly blackmailed by the gang, six of whom were arrested last week.

The prime suspect, Shweta Vijay Jain, had hired the company owned by one Santosh Kumar to store audio-video clips and messages in certain servers, the police officer cited above said requesting anonymity.

“For every video, Whatsapp chat or message with the victims, they [the gang members] got an encrypted backup data with the company to ensure that even if their phones or laptops were taken away, they had the data. Only certain persons in the gang had access to this data. The company also had a local office in Bhopal,” the officer said.

The officer said an MP police team has left for Bengaluru to question Kumar and others officials of the company who were allegedly in touch with Jain. The police are also questioning five software engineers who work at the company’s Bhopal office.

According to police officials, the Bengaluru-headquartered company provides services in cyber security; it also works with different government departments in Madhya Pradesh.

Indore senior superintendent of police, Ruchi Vardhan Mishra, also a member of the SIT, said, “We will interrogate the members of the company concerned and also we are scrutinising all the documents and gadgets recovered from them.”

The police have so far arrested six people — Aarti Dayal, 29, Monica Yadav, 18, Shweta Swapnil Jain, 39, Shweta Vijay Jain, 48, Barkha Soni, 34, and Omprakash Kori, 45. The SIT conducted fresh raids at Jain’s residence in Bhopal on Sunday and Monday and claimed to have recovered duplicate official stamps of different government departments.

“We will question for what purpose these stamps were used,” said a member of the SIT, whose chief was replaced and its strength reduced from eight to three after a meeting in chief minister’s office on Thursday.

Swapnil Jain, husband of one of the suspects, Shweta Swapnil Jain, said, “It was nothing but a case of political vendetta. My wife is innocent and she was trapped by the police unnecessarily.”

The arrests were made on the basis of a complaint lodged by Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) engineer, Harbhajan Singh, with Palasia police station in Indore, claiming that the gang had demanded ₹3 crore from him in exchange for not making his videos public.

The suspects have been remanded in judicial custody till October 14.