Honey-trapping case: Sanjha Lokswami office sealed by police in Indore, owner's residence raided

The Madhya Pradesh Police on Saturday sealed the office of a newspaper publication, Sanjha Lokswami, in Indore and raided various locations including the residence of the owner of the newspaper in connection with the honey-trapping case which surfaced in September.

"Raids are being conducted at various locations including the residence of Jitendra Soni, owner of the newspaper, Sanjha Lokswami in Indore in connection with the honey trap case," ANI quoted the police as saying.

Police sources stated that Soni had videos of political leaders and officials in compromising positions with women who are now in jail in connection with the honey-trapping case. However, no video evidence was recovered by the police in the raids.

The honey trapping case came to light after an Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) engineer had filed a complaint alleging that two women were blackmailing him by threatening to make some objectionable videos viral.

The engineer was later suspended from the service by the IMC.

So far, the more than 4000 files have been recovered from the laptops and mobile phones of the accused arrested in the case.

The recovered files include audio recordings, video clips and screenshots of chats, with many of them said to be objectionable in nature.

According to sources, the material was used to allegedly blackmail the bureaucrats, politicians and businessmen from the state.

The state government had also ordered a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the human trafficking charges in connection with the case.