New Delhi: Chhattisgarh police launched a pre-dawn raid on a senior journalist's home on Delhi's outskirts on a blackmail complaint from a BJP minister's aide and later arrested him on Friday morning, sparking fresh allegations of media intimidation.

Vinod Verma, member of the Editors Guild of India and associated with the Hindi daily Amar Ujala, was picked up from his Indirapuram apartment and taken to a police station where he was arrested after questioning.

"This is a political witch-hunt," the former BBC journalist told reporters. "I'm being framed as I have sex tapes of a Chhattisgarh minister."

The complaint by Prakash Bajaj of Raipur alleges that Verma was using a sex tape to blackmail a BJP leader. Police sources in Chhattisgarh claimed that Verma had made a phone call earlier this week to Bajaj, an aide to a state BJP minister, and demanded a ransom.

The Chhattisgarh police, who were accompanied by Uttar Pradesh police during the 3.30am raid, claimed to have seized 500 CDs, a pen drive, a diary and Rs 2 lakh in cash from Verma's home.

Bajaj had lodged the complaint on Thursday morning and the probe was transferred to the crime branch almost immediately, a media release by the Chhattisgarh police said.

A video dealer in Delhi allegedly told the investigators that a man named Vinod Verma had ordered 1,000 copies made of a CD.

Verma had been part of an Editors Guild fact-finding team that probed the alleged intimidation of journalists in Chhattisgarh.

Several media associations have called a meeting on Saturday to discuss the arrest. The Congress and the Swaraj Abhiyan have come out in support of Verma.

Congress spokesperson Ajay Maken alleged that the arrest was an attempt to silence Verma as he was investigating a sex scandal allegedly involving minister Rajesh Munat.

A joint statement by the Press Council of India, Indian Women's Press Corps, Federation of Press Clubs in India and the Press Association expressed concern at the way Verma was picked up in the dead of the night.

"The manner in which the arrest was done is shocking as Verma was not evading the law and neither was he absconding. The move by the state government appears to be intimidatory and does not serve the course of justice," the statement said.

"We urge a dispassionate and fair inquiry be conducted into the charges without any kind of pressure or harassment of Vinod Verma or his family."