Dehradun: A recent case of the Uttarakhand police reads like a story straight out of a Bollywood film: A property-dealer turns journalist, and partners with the aide of a senior bureaucrat to conduct a sting operation on the chief minister – aiming to cause a political crisis for the government.
The only problem is that the high court has supported the ‘stings’ and reprimanded the government for terrorising the media.
On October 28, Umesh Kumar, chief editor of the Hindi news channel Samachar Plus was arrested by the Uttarakhand police – which is now patting its back for saving the hill state from a major conspiracy.
According to the police, Kumar – famous for his controversial stings, including one on former chief minister Harish Rawat – was planning to target the present CM Trivendra Singh Rawat, along with a senior bureaucrat, Om Prakash, currently additional chief secretary in the state government.
In a twist, Umesh Kumar has been arrested under a BJP government, after having been a favourite of the state BJP for compromising Harish Rawat just before assembly polls in 2017.
“When a journalist does a sting against Congress, he becomes ‘a fearless and patriotic journalist,’ and when the same person does a sting against BJP, he becomes ‘corrupt and anti-national’. The government has made a mockery of not just Kumar but even of Uttarakhand police who is forced to do what a ‘party’ wants,” alleged Preetam Singh, president of Uttarakhand Congress.
In the earlier sting, Kumar showed Congress CM Harish Rawat allegedly offering a bribe to party members after a revolt by ten Congress MLAs. The sting went viral just before the floor test. Harish won the confidence vote, but afterwards, with assembly polls around the corner, the opposition party had public sympathy for removing the ‘corrupt’ incumbents.
Even earlier, the Congress hailed the same journalist for his sting related to the 2010 ‘Hydro Scam’ under the government of BJP’s Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.
Kumar, a property dealer originally from Delhi, only started his journalism career in 2002, when “the then chief minister of Uttarakhand doted on him like a father figure, and it was under his guidance that he started off his journalism career,” according to his bio on Kumar’s personal webpage.
In 2012, He launched the channel Samachar Plus, which reaches from Uttarakhand to Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Umesh Kumar is the only editor in Uttarakhand to have been accorded ‘Y’ category security cover (His last security detail was renewed in 2015). He claimed good relations with all the chief ministers of the hill state and said that he has no political affiliations.
The one exception was the BJP’s Nishank, chief minister in 2009 and 2010. Under Nishank, the police filed multiple cases of fraud against Kumar. All of them were withdrawn by later governments.
However, the news-channel editor was arrested in October, two months after one of his own employees, Ayush Gaud, lodged an FIR against Kumar for forcing employees to conduct stings on politicians and bureaucrats. Gaud filed the complaint with Dehradun’s Rajpur police station on August 10, and charged Kumar of using the sting videos for blackmail.
Gaud also accused four others – Praveen Sahani, Saurav Sahani, Rahul Bhatia, who also work at Samachar Plus, and Mrityunjay Mishra, former registrar of Uttarakhand Ayurveda University.
On October 28, UP and Uttarakhand police raided Kumar’s home in Ghaziabad. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Dehradun, Nivedita Kukreti told media that Rs 39 lakh in cash, some foreign currency and equipment for sting operations were recovered from the house, along with scores of hard drives and CDs.
The accused were booked for extortion and criminal conspiracy.
Kumar’s arrest came as a surprise to many political observers, followed by another jolt when the high court stayed the arrest of Praveen Sahni, Rahul Bhatia and Saurabh. The court alleged that “the state government is trying to suppress and terrorise the media” and that sting operations could not be banned.
Also read: The Fate of Press Freedom in India Over the Years
“Dehradun police has asked for custody of Umesh Kumar on Friday (November 2) which is still pending in the local court,” SSP Kukreti told The Wire. “The police could gather some information from him in interrogation and we are following the tip given by him.”
The Uttarakhand police is also reopening all the cases lodged against Kumar over the past decade.
BJP state president’s letter in support of Umesh Kumar, written when Kumar faced cases under the Congress government.
Ajay Bhatt, state BJP president and formerly leader of the opposition, once wrote a letter in support of Umesh Kumar – when the “great journalist” faced “false cases” for his “fearless” sting on the Congress government. Bhatt now admits that he wrote the letter, but refutes any claims about his personal connections with Kumar.
“Hundreds of people used to come to me to seek help,” he told The Wire. “He might have come to me, and I might have written a letter, but that doesn’t mean he is my friend.”