Honey-trap case: Raid at local bizman's home, media firm

Madhya Pradesh Police along with the Indore district authorities raided the home, media firm and three other establishments of a local businessman in connection with the honey-trap case, an official said on Sunday.

The raids were conducted at businessman Jitendra Soni's home, hotel, restaurant and night club here late Saturday night, he said.

"Soni also owns a local eveninger. The investigators also went to his newspaper's office," the official said.

The authorities have so far not shared any details of the searches conducted at Soni's premises.

His media firm was of late publishing news about some audio-video clips allegedly linked to the honey-trap case.

Meanwhile, some local organisations of journalists condemned the raid on Soni's media firm, saying the exercise was aimed at "intimidating" the fourth pillar of democracy.

Five women and a man were arrested from Indore and Bhopal in September for allegedly running the honey-trap and blackmailing racket.

The racket was busted after an engineer of the Indore Municipal Corporation approached the police, claiming he was being blackmailed over some objectionable video clips by the accused who were trying to extort about Rs 3 crore from him.

The accused - Aarti Dayal (29), Monika Yadav (18), Shweta Vijay Jain (39), Shweta Swapnil Jain (48), Barkha Soni (34) and Omprakash Kori (45) - are currently in judicial custody.