Bengaluru: The Sadashivanagar police on Tuesday arrested the input chief of a reputed local news channel for blackmailing and extorting money from Dr Raman Rao, a doctor and Padma Shri award winner.
The accused, Hemanth Kashyap, working with the Kannada news channel, was caught red-handed by the police when he came to collect the money from Dr Rao. The police are searching for the other accused, Manjunath, a reporter with another news channel, who is absconding. The police said that they are on the hunt for four more people who are involved in the case, and all of them are from the same news channel.
Dr Rao filed a complaint with the Sadashivanagar police after the accused extorted Rs 5 lakh from him and later demanded Rs 50 lakh. Dr Rao runs a nursing home in Sadashivanagar and was also the family doctor of the famous Kannada actor, late Dr. Rajkumar.
The police said that Hemanth blackmailed the doctor with some of his private videos and threatened to telecast them on their news channel. Hemanth had visited Dr Rao’s nursing home and collected Rs 2 lakh on two occasions and Rs 1 lakh on another. He again contacted him and demanded Rs 50 lakh and that was when Dr Rao decided to approach the police. Dr Rao handed over the CCTV footage of Hemanth receiving the money from him at his nursing home to the police. The police on Tuesday laid a trap and caught him red handed when he came to collect the money.
The Sadashivanagar police have registered a case and requested the public to come forward and file a complaint if the accused had blackmailed them too.
The police have taken the accused into four-day police custody and are investigating.
