TNN | Updated: Nov 30, 2019, 4:19 IST
Bhopal: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has approached the SIT investigating the ‘honeytrap scandal’ for details on suspicious cash transactions so that it can register a case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, say sources.
SIT is yet to respond to ED’s request. Sources say the honeytrap probe team has detected financial transactions between the accused women and some bureaucrats who were allegedly targeted for extortion. It is said that a retired bureaucrat had ended up paying crores.
The DG Rajendra Kumar-led SIT has recorded statements of many people named in the dossier submitted by the previous SIT, say sources. Most of them are businessmen and industrialists from various corners of Madhya Pradesh, who were named by the ‘honeytrap’ gang during interrogation in police custody.
The previous SIT — which gathered 4,000 smut videos, sex chat screenshots, photographs and reams of evidence — had closely interrogated the five women arrested in the case. They followed electronic trails of each person named by the women to crosscheck authenticity, say sources. The chopping and changing of SIT chiefs — prior to the SIT, there was a 24-hour period when the case had three investigating officers — had sparked controversy.
There are distinctive fallouts of this scandal — many government officials are apprehensive of being eavesdropped and are resorting to internet calls instead of WhatsApp calls, say sources. The recent surfacing of videos and audios allegedly involving a former minister and a former bureaucrat, sparked controversy and allegations of ‘selective leak’. It’s now known if these viral videos and audios were from the 4,000-odd seizures. SIT had earlier informed court that no files were leaked after the case was transferred to them.
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