Odisha Honeytrap Kingpin Archana Nag’s Bail Plea Rejected

Bhubaneswar: The bail plea of Archana Nag, accused of running a sextortion racket in Odisha, was rejected by a court in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday in a case of blackmailing filmmaker Akshay Parija.

While hearing her application, the court of Judicial Magistrate of First Class (3) declined to grant bail to the alleged lady blackmailer, who was accused of honey-trapping bigwigs including politicians, film producers, businessmen and government officials and extorting money.

Parija had filed a complaint with Nayapalli police accusing Archana of threatening to make public his intimate photos and demanding Rs 3 crore from him. The Enforcement Directorate (ED), probing money laundering related to the case, has interrogated Parija twice in this connection.

Meanwhile, another accused Khageswar Patra’s aide Abinash Priyadarshi alias Chandan appeared before the Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday. 

Sources claimed that ED has planned to take on remand Archana Nag and her husband Jagabandhu Chand, who are now in the high-security Jharpada jail in Bhubaneswar, for interrogation in this connection. 

The ED has so far interrogated five out of 15 persons in the honey-trap case. The film producer was interrogated for 12 long-hours on Tuesday.  

Earlier, the court of the Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM) in Bhubaneswar had turned down the bail plea of Archana, who was arrested by police on October 6 on charges of honey-trapping high-profile people and extorting money from them.