Bengaluru: News channel CEO held for extortion

Bengaluru: Lakshmi Prasad Vajapai (42), the CEO of Janasri News – a Kannada news channel based in Bengaluru, was arrested on Friday night for running an extortion racket using his channel and ‘blackmailing’ prominent businessmen in the city. Several of his associates too have been arrested.

The police arrested Vajapai after a raid on his office on Friday night. He was picked up after catching his aide, Mithun, redhanded while receiving the ransom money from one of the board members of Injaz Builders & Developers Pvt. Ltd, on Vajapai’s instructions.

The raid was conducted following a complaint filed by board members of Injaz Group that Vajapai had demanded Rs 20 crore as ransom to shelve a news report, which showed their company in bad light. Vajapai threatened to air the entire episode and tarnish the company’s image if they did not pay up.

Based on the complaint, the police set a trap and arrested Vajapai, his associate Mithun and four of Vajapai’s gunmen, who are all said to be from Uttar Pradesh. The 45th ACMM Court remanded the five accused to judicial custody, while Vajapai has been remanded to police custody till April 19.

Managing Director of Injaz Builders, Suhail Sharif, told Deccan Chronicle that Janasri aired a promo on Friday morning, which depicted their company as fraud and labelled him as a land grabber. Taken aback, Suhail, who was in Mysuru, called up the Janasri office to enquire. “The receptionist connected me to Vajapai. When I asked him why the channel was airing false news, he refused to talk and called me to the office immediately. As I was in Mysuru, I sent my brother Zulfiqar Tipu to the TV channel’s office. Zulfiqar was escorted to Vajapai’s cabin by four security guards. They asked him to surrender all his belongings, including the mobile phone, even as Vajapai’s gunman pointed the gun at him,” he said.

Zulfiqar said, “When I entered Vajapai’s cabin and enquired about the news report, Vajapai right away demanded Rs 20 crore to stop the news report. When I objected, he threatened to tarnish the image of our company. We finally struck a deal for Rs 10 crore. He asked Rs 2 crore in cash, Rs 5 crore deposited into the bank account of a company, My Dreams Broadcasting Pvt. Ltd, and the rest in the form of a property either in Jayanagar or Koramangala.”

Later, Suhail, Zulfiqar and Misbah Mukarram, another core member of the company, approached the Koramangala police. The police set a trap and arrested Mithun as he was receiving money. Vajapai too was arrested.

Injaz Group is not the first victim of Vajapai’s ‘extortion network’. Two cases of blackmail had already been filed earlier this year at the Mahalakshmipuram and Commercial Street police stations for demanding crores of rupees as ransom.

Asked why Vajapai was not arrested earlier, City Police Commissioner Praveen Sood said that they were waiting for the right time. “The arrest would have been made long back if we had the evidence against Vajapai. Friday turned out to be a fine day for us as we had solid evidence against him,” he said. Mithun is a house keeping staffer at Janasri, the police said.

Cops took minister’s nod before nabbing Lakshmiprasad Vajapai
When the police received a complaint against Janasri CEO Lakshmiprasad Vajapai, they reportedly took permission from a senior minister in the state cabinet before initiating action against him.

Sources in the police department said that as the accused was holding a top position in the media house run by a politician, the senior officers decided to take the nod from the minister.

“As this is a rare case, where an extortion complaint is filed against the official of a news channel, even the senior officers took the case seriously. Before deciding the course of operation, the senior minister was informed to get a clear message that the state government did not have any issue with the police cracking down on the media house. Only after getting a ‘go ahead’ from him did the officers decide to nab the accused red-handed,” an official said.

It is learnt that Vajapai was involved in extortion rackets in Andhra Pradesh as well. Vajapai had earlier launched a Telugu news channel, which conducted sting operations against wealthy people. He then used to extort money from them showing the footage, sources added.

He had joined Janasri for the second time just two months ago. “He was targeting those who run chit funds and gold scheme without valid licences. He threatened them that he had all the information about their trade and made them speak to a ‘fake’ SEBI official, set up by him, over the phone. Then, he struck a deal with them and made crores of rupees,” the source said.