A court in Raipur on Monday extended former BBC journalist Vinod Verma’s judicial custody till December 11 in connection with a case of an alleged sex CD involving a Chhattisgarh Bharatiya Janata Party minister, PTI reported. A member of the Editors Guild of India, Verma is accused of trying to extort money from minister Rajesh Munat who reportedly features in the CDs.
This is the second time that Verma’ judicial remand has been extended, his lawyer Faisal Rizvi said. Magistrate Bhavesh Kumar Watti had first sent the journalist to judicial custody on October 31 for 14 days, and later it was extended till November 27, reported The Times of India.
Verma was arrested from his home in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, on October 27. The Chhattisgarh Police had claimed to have seized 500 copies of the CD from Verma’s residence that the journalist’s counsel alleged were planted by the police.
The former BBC journalist and Editors Guild of India member has denied the accusations levelled against him, and has said that he was being falsely implicated in the case. He told reporters that he possessed a video clip featuring Munat. “That is why Chhattisgarh government is not happy with me,” he added. In 2016, Verma was part of a fact-finding team of the Editors Guild of India that investigated the arrests and threats faced by journalists in the state.
The case is now being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
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