GHAZIABAD: Having reported on honey trap cases and knowing well that most victims succumb to extortion demands, three journalists of a local news channel allegedly trapped a Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation (GMC) official with their woman accomplice and demanded Rs 15 lakh from him for not making their “objectionable” videos public.Police laid a trap and arrested one of the journalists, Rakesh Chauhan, near Kavi Nagar D Block on Thursday. Four other accused — Imran Khan, editor of the Hindi news channel, his nephew Nimmo, TV journalist Navneet, and the woman — are, however, on the run. They have been booked under IPC Section 386 (extortion) at Kavi Nagar police station.Rakesh was arrested after the GMC official, a head clerk, lodged a complaint at Kavi Nagar police station against the five people — but that after paying them Rs 55,000 in two instalments. Of the extortion money, Rs 30,000 have been recovered from Rakesh’s house in Shastri Nagar.In the complaint, the GMC official said that Rakesh had called him some 15 days back and sought his help in getting the woman a job in the corporation. A few days later, the woman was introduced to the GMC official and subsequently she asked him to come to a hotel for a meeting.“In the hotel room, the accused clicked some objectionable videos of me with the woman. Initially they had demanded Rs 15 lakh, but later reduced it to Rs 6 lakh, and threatened to file a rape case against me if I did not pay the money, besides sending the videos to my family members and office,” he told cops.During interrogation, Rakesh confessed to his crime but told police that it was Imran who had instigated him and others to honey trap government officials and businessmen, and extort money from them. For this plan, Imran had also roped in one of his woman employees. “Imran gave Rakesh the mobile number of the clerk and asked the accused to honey trap him. While Rs 30,000 was recovered from Rakesh’s house, he had given Rs 20,000 to Imran,” said SHO (Kavi Nagar) Raj Kumar Sharma.

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