New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate has arrested journalist Mahesh Langa – who was already in a Gujarat jail – under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, in a case involving alleged cheating and criminal breach of trust.
A PMLA court at Mirzapur has ordered Langa’s custodial remand till February 28.
A senior journalist at The Hindu, Langa was arrested in October last year by the Ahmedabad crime branch on an alleged case of GST fraud, even though he was not mentioned by name in the primary FIR.
Since then, Langa has had five first information reports filed against him by the Gujarat Police and now, two, by the ED.
The Gujarat high court on February 17 had rejected Langa’s plea for the quashing of the FIR filed against him for allegedly possessing confidential government documents.
Five journalists’ bodies – the Delhi Union of Journalists, Indian Women’s Press Corps, Press Association and Kerala Union of Working Journalists together with the Press Club of India, and the Editors Guild of India – have called police action against him shocking.
The Indian Express has reported that the Detection of Crime Branch Police Station’s FIR against Langa led the ED to file its cases against him. He is accused of having cheated a businessman of Rs 28.68 lakh.
Another FIR – filed against Langa by the Satellite police station in Ahmedabad over fraud allegations – led to the second case. Langa allegedly extorted Rs 40 lakh from a land broker, this FIR claims.
The ED has also claimed that the journalist is also involved in ‘GST Input Tax Credit scam’ and that he tried to “obscure the true nature of financial transactions involved in cheating and GST Input Tax Credit scam”.
