Hyderabad, June 02: Criminal cases have been registered against the CEO and two employees of Telugu channel, NTV, today following a complaint by the pontiff of Visakhapatnam-based Sarada peetam, Swamy Swaroopananda, alleging that the former tried to extort money from him and threatened to expose his `misdeeds’ if he did not pay the amount.
The channel started telecasting stories about the alleged misdeeds of Swamy Swaroopananda today morning and the same was denied by the pontiff.
The news channel alleged that the Swamy had encroached land in Visakhapatnam and also misappropriated money donated to him. Vehemently denying the allegations, Swamy Swaroopananda approached the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) and the city police seeking action against the television channel.
Reacting to Swamy Swaroopananda’s petition, the SHRC asked the city police to file a detailed report by June 10.
Swamy Swaroopananda also met Director-General of Police R R Girish Kumar and asked him to investigate into his complaint and take action against the channel management for threatening him.
Swamy Swaroopananda reportedly told the police that NTV had demanded him to pay Rs one crore or else he would be portrayed as other Swamy’s who were recently exposed in indulging in indecent acts. “All the allegations leveled against me by the channel are untrue and I am ready for any probe,’’ the Swamy told.
The pontiff later lodged a complaint with the Banjara Hills police.
Based on the complaint, police registered cases under Sections 385 (extortion) and 506 (criminal intimidation) against the CEO of NTV , Rajasekhar, and two of the channel marketing executives, Srikanth and Ramana.
Swamy Swaroopananda earlier used to give religious discourses in Bhakti TV which is also run by the NTV.
“Though the discourses were given free of cost, NTV management, which is said to be running into losses demanded the Swamy to pay Rs one crore. As the Swamy did not budge, the channel CEO and executives threatened to portray Swamy Swaroopananda in bad light and tried to extort money,’’ a close aide of Swamy claimed.
Swamy Swaroopananda recorded the telephonic conversations of the channel CEO and executives and approached another private Telugu channel and in turn claimed to have exposed the misdeeds of the other.
—Agencies