Bhubaneswar: Police had detained senior journalist Ramesh Rath of OTV for a few hours on Thursday in connection with an alleged obscene video clip of a sitting MP which went viral ahead of 2019 elections, Twin City Police Commissioner Sudhanshu Sarangi told ThePrint.
The news channel had earlier claimed the senior journalist was whisked away by police for allegedly exposing Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s chopper run to assess the flood situation in the state.
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Police, however, denied the allegations and said no arrest was made.
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Keonjhar SP Mitrabhanu Satpathy told the daily that one among the five persons arrested in connection with the case had named Rath as the one who provided the video details.
He said that Keonjhar Town Police had picked up Rath for interrogation, and he was released after a few hours. “We wanted the access to the computer from which the video was made viral, but our officers are being denied entry to OTV’s office,” he was quoted as saying by ThePrint.
Sadar police station in-charge Jai Narayan Khandai told The Indian Express that Rath was picked up by police after one of the accused, who was arrested in the case and was serving jail term, informed that the journalist had some video material pertaining to the case. “No arrests have been made yet,” he added.
Rath told the daily that the police seized both his phones. “They took me to Chandrasekharpur police station and gave me a notice to be present at a police station in Keonjhar on October 21. Making allegations against me now in a case that is at least a year old, immediately a day after certain reports, cannot be a mere coincidence. Nevertheless, I will cooperate with the investigation,” he added.
