Republic TV had dismissed Param Bir Singh’s claim that the channel tampered with TRPs (file)
Mumbai:
Mumbai police on Tuesday issued a subpoena to Republic TV’s executive editor and a journalist working with the channel in connection with the false Television Rating Point (TRP) fraud, an official said.
Niranjan Narayanaswamy, executive news editor and journalist Abhishek Kapoor were summoned by the Criminal Intelligence Unit (CIU) at 12 noon on Wednesday, he said.
On October 10, Republic TV had broadcast a document that allegedly belonged to the Hansa Investigation Group and “there are reasonable grounds to believe that the persons summoned are aware of certain facts and circumstances of the document and are required to be determined from them” the subpoena said.
The CIU on Tuesday recorded statements by Pravin Nizar and Nitin Deokar of the Hansa agency.
The Special Investigation Team of the Crimes Branch also visited the BARC office and made inquiries with some officials, including its science and technology officer, the police official said.
Vinay Tripathi, arrested by the UIC in the case, was taken to the city on remand and four other defendants who were previously arrested in the case were sent into police custody until Oct. 16, he said.
The bogus TRP scam came to light when the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) rating agency filed a complaint through Hansa Research Group, alleging that certain TV channels were tampering with TRP’s numbers.
Hansa is one of BARC’s suppliers that works with panel houses or people meters.
Last week, Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh claimed that Republic TV and two Marathi channels, Box Cinema and Fakt Marathi, manipulated TRP.
Republic TV has denied Param Bir Singh’s claims.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
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