Indore: Reward of Rs 1 lakh announced on absconding Jitu Soni

A prize money of Rs 1 Lakh was on Friday announced on the information of absconding accused Jitu Soni against whom a case under IT Act was filed by an employee of the Municipal Corporation of Indore for publishing news and videos related with honey trap incident, police said.

At least 25 other cases are registered in the past 12 days against Jitu and nine of them are old cases.

Jitu Soni is the owner of Sanjha Lokswami newspaper in which he published news reports about honey trap incident in the state. Soni is also accused of publishing audio and videos related to the honey trap incident on a YouTube channel of his newspaper.

The Indore Municipal Corporation Official Harbhajan Singh had filed a case against Jitu and his son Amit Soni under the IT Act for publishing news about honey trap incident.

In a press conference earlier this month here, Senior Superintendent of Police Ruchi Vardhan Mishra had then said: "An FIR has been registered against Jitu Soni, his son Amit Soni, manager of 'My Home' and others under Indian Penal Code Section 370."

The SSP had said that the 67 women and girls and 7 minor girls were rescued from 'My Home' - a bar run by Jitu Soni. "They were kept there to entice the customers and were paid only through the tips given by them," the SSP had said.

Earlier this year, six persons, including five women, were arrested in connection with the case. It came to light after an Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) engineer filed a complaint alleging that two women were blackmailing him by threatening to make some objectionable videos viral.

The scandal had rocked the state and snowballed into a political controversy.