Two journalists arrested for extorting money from builders

Police said that one Dhananjay Srivastava,a deputy general manager at the Omaxe Construction Company Limited in Kalkaji,complained that a few days ago a person handed him a copy of the “New Bright Star” published in March 2009,which had a defamatory story about the company. The person asked Srivastava to contact the editor of the magazine,Jagjit Sharma.

“The complainant contacted Sharma,who told him to pay Rs 10 lakh,failing which he would publish more defamatory articles. The complainant went to the Kalkaji police with a complaint. The police team set a trap and Sharma was instructed to pay Rs 1.5 lakh as a first installment to the accused. During the exchange of money,the accused were arrested,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast),Shalini Singh said.

The police said Jagjit Sharma had started working as a reporter in a newspaper and later he started “New Bright Star”,a monthly magazine.

Initially,he wrote stories about construction companies taking huge amounts of money from the public for the allotment of flats in their undeveloped projects.

Some builders reportedly contacted him and he started extorting money from them,the police said.