Bhopal: As investigations into Madhya Pradesh’s “honey-trap” scandal that targeted mainly politicians and bureaucrats and involved five woman who used sex workers and young college girls continues to run in circles, former Congress IT cell official Amit Soni has publicly professed his wife’s innocence in the case.
Amit Soni, the husband of Barkha Soni Bhatnagar, affirmed that his wife was wrongly framed in a scandal that has the police scurrying probing the high profile extortion racket in which over 1,000 clips of sex chats, explicit videos and audios have been found from computers and mobile phones.
He also thrashed reports of him pocketing big projects through his wife’s contacts with top bureaucrats and politicians. “I wish to clarify that I have no NGO registered on my name and I am also not associated with any other non-governmental organization,” he said.
Soni was vice-president of the state Congress social media and IT department when he was removed from all posts. Soon after the honeytrap scandal exploded on media channels, Pradesh Congress released his sacking orders of June, signed by chairman of PCC social media and IT department, Abhay Tiwari.
While speaking to media, Soni accepted that he had been associated with the Congress IT Cell in the past. However, he claimed that his Twitter handle was hacked in June and some inappropriate content was posted from his account. He purportedly lodged a complaint with the cyber cell and the matter is currently under probe.
“Had I really known influential people such as politicians and ministers, we wouldn’t have been arrested,” Soni added as he further cited his Income Tax Returns of the last eight-nine years that purportedly reveal he had hardly worked on projects worth even a crore.
“Neither other women named in the scandal have identified my wife nor the complainant in the case,” Soni said. He is yet to apply for bail as he claims to have ‘faith in the court’.
The former Congress worker has confessed that one of the accused, Shweta Vijay Jain, was their neighbor and an acquaintance of his wife. Soni claimed he heard reports of Rs 15 lakh recovered from Jain’s house on the day he and his wife were nabbed by the police.
All five women are in judicial custody till Oct 14.
Meanwhile the MP police is said to have arrested a woman from Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh in connection to the scandal on Friday. However, there was no official confirmation on the arrest till the report was filed.After the second SIT was dissolved days ago, the fresh team under DG (Cyber Crime) Rajendra Kumar has started working on the case.
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