In MP, 67 women rescued from bar run by tabloid owner: Police

BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh police on Monday formed six teams and announced a reward of ~10,000 for anyone who would help them catch a tabloid owner accused of human trafficking and blackmail. The police raided several premises linked to the owner, Jeetendra Soni, over the weekend and rescued 67 women from a hotel he allegedly ran, according to an official.

“The rescued women, mostly residents of West Bengal and north-eastern states, complained that they were victims of human trafficking,” said Indore senior superintendent of police Ruchi Vardhan Mishra. “The police also recovered documents of at least 30 properties worth ~150 crore and 36 live cartridges of a non-licensed firearm from the residence of Soni. The hotel is owned by Jeetendra Soni and his son, Amit Soni,” Mishra said.

Amit Soni was arrested on Sunday, and on Monday a court sent him to police custody till December 6.

According to the police, after the raids, the office of his daily publication, Sanjha Lokswami, were sealed.

The police swung into action after a complaint was filed on Saturday by Indore Nagar Nigam engineer Harbhajan Singh, also a complainant in the state’s highprofile extortion racket scandal that surfaced in September.

The engineer alleged that Jeetendra Soni was blackmailing him after publishing his photographs with one of the extortion racket accused in his tabloid.

Jeetendra Soni also recently published a purported telephonic conversation between a former minister, a retired bureaucrat and two persons in the extortion gang, which was busted with the arrest of six people.

The gang allegedly targeted politicians and bureaucrats, and blackmailed them to bag lucrative contracts.

The Indore Press Club contended the raids were conducted as Soni’s paper published stories that made powerful people uncomfortable. His family members did not talk to the media.