THE FAKE STING OPERATION
Now coming back to the sting operation against Uma Khurana. After watching the report on the TV news channels all thought that what was shown was authentic. Eventually, the teacher was converted to a notorious criminal for the parents of the children studying in the school and the people living across the nation as well. Uma Khurana was sacked from the job and was badly abused and assaulted by a mob near the school. Later she was arrested and remanded in judicial custody for her alleged involvement in the prostitution racket.
A surprising development occurred in this case, when Delhi Police arrested the correspondent of the TV News Channel, Prakash Singh. Besides, Rashmi Singh, who writes for a Hindi newspaper, posed as a schoolgirl and the victim of the prostitution racket in the sting operation, was also taken in judicial custody till 15th September.
There is a big twist in Delhi School Sex Racket case as Police has found the so called ‘sting operation’ carried out by ‘LIVE INDIA’ TV channel on a school teacher allegedly forcing her students into prostitution seems to be fake in the first appearance.
According to the police, there might be a clash between Virendra Arora, a suspect of supplying girl to the school teacher and Uma Khurana, the prime accuse of sex racket case as called by the Private Television channel over the repayment of Rs 1 lakh which Uma Khurana owned from Virender Arora and was not taking interest to return it. Virendra Arora informed the reporter of ‘LIVE INDIA’ channel regarding the sex racket allegedly conducted by Uma Khurana, who contacted the victim girl of the sting operation.
The police believes that the victim girl is neither a student nor a prostitute, but was a journalist in her early twenties in a small news paper in Noida and she was given to believe that sting work would enhance her job prospects and also save the lives of innocents trapped by Khurana. The police has arrested her under Section 192 (fabricating evidence), 193 (punishment for false evidence), 211 (false charges with intention to injure), 419 (impersonation) and 420 (cheating) of IPC.
Police have found no evidence against Uma khurana till now and said, “Neither was the girl shown in the sting a student of Khurana, nor had a deal been fixed. The girl enacted it all with the other reporter. She was part of a conspiracy to implicate the teacher”, According to Additional Commissioner (Crime) Muktesh Chander.
According to police sources, Virendra Arora, a small businessman and living in the trans-Yamuna area of Delhi has been already arrested on the disclosure of Uma as she said that he had provided the girl who was shown in the sting operation. Investigators said that it was Arora’s idea to frame the teacher in the sex racket who had fallen out with Khurana, with whom he used to run an informal chit fund. Virendra had asked Prakash to loom Khurana by offering her a partnership in a jewellery business. He had said it would be easy to deceive her into revealing her prostitution ring, as she can do anything for earning easy money .
The police have also arrested the reporter of the channel in the suspicion of framing the alleged teacher in the sex racket by conducting fake sting operation. Delhi’s Tis Hazari court has sent the reporter for seven days imprisonment alleged charge of conducting fake sting operation to frame any individual.
According to Arvinder singh Lovely, Delhi Education Minister , “The official report is yet to come, only then we will decide what further action to take,” after asking the fate of Uma Khurana, who is likely to be trapped in the sting operation.
On the fake sting operation, According to Priyaranjan Das Munshi, Minister of Information and Broadcasting , “Now days, it is the prime work of two or three specific TV channels to conduct the sting operation not for extracting the truth, but only to boost the TRP of the Channel. We will soon put a bill before the Parliament to pass it against these fake sting operations.”
According to Live India Channel CEO Sudhir Chaudhary “The entire sting is not fake but yes there are weak links, which we also came to know after reading media reports and after police started investigating.”
The Delhi High court issued strict orders in response to the media reports and asked the Delhi government and the Delhi Police to reply on the authenticity of the sting operation by Monday. However, according to current investigation, it appears that Uma Khurana, was framed and there are chances that the allegations against her may not be true. So, the issue has once again raised a number of questions against the functioning of the media in our country.
So far the investigation has revealed that she was a victim of a fake sting operation conducted by the private TV news channel,’ Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Alok Aggarwal said while granting her bail.
Khurana’s lawyer Vivek Sharma said: ‘We argued in the court that she was arrested only on the basis of a sting operation and even the prosecution has admitted that the sting operation was doctored.’
The Delhi police gave a clean chit to Delhi Government teacher Uma Khurana in the fake sting operation case, even as the Delhi High Court asked the Union Government what action it planned to take against the private Hindi news channel that conducted the sting.
In a reply to the summoning of the case file relating to Ms. Khurana by the High Court, the police informed a Division Bench comprising Justice M.K. Sharma and Justice Sanjiv Khanna that they had informed the Additional Director of Education of the Delhi Government that “Uma Khurana has not been found to be involved in any organised prostitution racket of school girls as shown in the sting operation and that part of the sting operation was stage-managed.”
The Bench has asked the Union Government to file a reply to a public interest litigation petition seeking a direction for framing guidelines for sting operations by news channels.
After all Broadly speaking, raising fingers against the functioning of the press, only due to a few irresponsible reporters or correspondents is not fair. Even today, a couple of centuries since its birth, the press is fair, fulfilling its duties very well and has maintained its credibility in the country and amongst its people. Most importantly, questions will always be raised against the press and it’s functioning. It is the duty of each and every person related to journalism how they understand and fulfill their responsibilities and keep themselves away from controversies.