Rashmi Singh, a freelance journalist who posed as a schoolgirl victim of a prostitution racket in a fake television sting, was Friday remanded in judicial custody till September 15 by a magistrate here. Prakash Singh, the reporter behind the sting operation, was arrested Friday morning.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Delhi Aloke Agarwal remanded Rashmi Singh in judicial custody after the police alleged in court that she was part of the fake sting operation aired by the Live India TV channel that showed a mathematics teacher forcing schoolgirls into prostitution.
Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court also took suo motu cognisance of the news reports on the sting operation Friday and issued notices to the Delhi Government and Delhi Police.
A bench headed by Chief Justice M.K. Sarma asked the state government and Delhi Police to file their replies by Monday to the allegation in the sting operation.
The TV channel's so-called sting report had led to a mob going berserk last week in and around the government-run school in central Delhi where the mathematics teacher worked. The mob manhandled the teacher, Uma Khurana. She was arrested, remanded in judicial custody and promptly sacked by the education department by the Delhi government as a result of what has now been found to be a fake TV sting operation.
"We have arrested Prakash Singh, reporter of Live India channel, for carrying out a fake sting operation, which showed that Uma Khurana was forcing her students into prostitution," a senior police official told IANS Friday.
"We are currently interrogating him and it seems that he conducted the sting to ensnare Khurana, who had some financial disputes with his friend Virender Arora," the official added.
The official said that Prakash Singh hired Rashmi Singh to act as a schoolgirl victim of the prostitution ring in the sting operation. She was reportedly part of the conspiracy to frame Khurana.
The police arrested Rashmi Singh late Thursday. She has been charged with cheating, fabrication of evidence and criminal conspiracy.
The police alleged that Prakash Singh prepared the fake report on the basis of the purported sting operation earlier, when he worked as a trainee in another news channel. That channel did not carry the report because it found many loopholes in it.