Fake TRP scam: The accounts of the last five years of five TV channels will now be investigated

Mumbai: The problems of five channels on the radar in the fake TRP case have increased. The Crime Branch Intelligence Unit (CIU) has sought five years of information on all their bank accounts from the owners of these channels.

"When we checked some of the accounts of these channels, we found that there was a sudden surge," a CIU official said on Thursday. We are investigating this case in depth and want to get to the root of the matter. We have therefore asked the owners of all these channels and their finance department to provide information on the accounts for the last five years.

When Mumbai Police Commissioner Parambir Singh held a press conference on October 8, he named the Republic Channel with only Marathi, Box Cinema. Three days ago, when senior inspector Sachin Vaze's team arrested two accused, Dinesh Vishwakarma and Ramji Verma, two more channels came up in their interrogation. One of them is a Hindi news channel and the other is a music channel.

Many people in the Republic are being questioned

The CIU has questioned a number of Republic Channel people in the case. Distribution head Ghanshyam Singh and executive editor Niranjan Swamy were questioned on Thursday. Swamy also questioned Hansa's report by the CIU, which was shown several times on the Republic Channel on and after October 10. The CIU had last asked Niranjan Swamy for the Hansa Research Group's report. He gave us a xerox of the report on Thursday, according to a CIU official. On which there was no date. No information was found on what this is about. The ICU has therefore asked him to provide the original copy of Hansani's report and has called him back for questioning.

With many serious clauses now also joined the deception clause

Earlier, sections 409,420,120 (b) and 34 of the IPC were invoked in this case. Sections 174,179,201 and 204 of the IPC were later added. According to a CIU official, we have now decided to join the fraud and clauses in this case. A total of eight people have been arrested so far in the case.