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New Delhi, Sept. 7: A stationery seller and two journalists orchestrated a trumped-up “sting” operation accusing a teacher of luring children into prostitution, police said today.
Twenty-two people, including 12 policemen, suffered injuries and over 20 vehicles were damaged in mob violence that broke out in Old Delhi after a TV channel aired footage of the “sting operation”.
Prakash Singh, the reporter who carried it out, was arrested today as the police all but cleared Uma Khurana, accused of filming obscene clips of her students after drugging them.
“We are now practically certain the sting operation was concocted by the reporter and his aides,” the deputy commissioner of police (central Delhi), Alok Kumar, said today.
The police’s suspicions had been raised when Khurana insisted she was innocent and named a man, Virender Arora, as the person who had framed her.
Khurana’s statement led to Arora’s arrest on September 2. Arora, a pencil distributor, is a friend of Prakash. Arora had contacted Prakash after Khurana refused to return money he had lent her. “This was his way of getting back at her,” the official said.
The sting consisted of two disconnected scenes, police sources said.
The first showed Khurana meeting a girl — described by Prakash as a “victim” — at a roadside coffee shop, where they allegedly strike a deal. Khurana is heard mentioning Rs 4,000, in the otherwise inaudible sequence caught on secret camera, the police said.
The next scene has the girl talking to Prakash about what she claims transpired between Khurana and her. In a reference to Khurana, a math teacher at Daryaganj Government Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, the girl is heard describing how “madam” coerces girls into prostitution after first filming them virtually naked.
The police, however, were unable to trace either the girl or two other “victims” she mentions in the footage. Late last night though, they found the girl — Rashmi Singh — in a Noida apartment.
“She is no student. She is a journalist known to Prakash Singh,” an official said.
