Case filed against 3 scribes for collecting Rs. 2L from trader

Srikakulam: Police intensified investigation into the criminal case booked against three journalists of local evening dailies in Srikakulam.

According to police, scribes Titti Praveen and Pedada Manikanta entered a sweet shop in Srikakulam city and introduced themselves to the shop owner Rayapureddi Chandra Sekhar as GST officials.

They asked him to show all licences for which he replied that he was running a small business to eke out livelihood for his family and he has no permissions. The journalists demanded Rs 15 lakh bribe from him and in the meantime another journalist Ravi Kumar reached there as per their previous plan and he too threatened the trader to settle the issue by saying that the duo were GST officers.

Fearing that cases would be filed against him, the innocent trader agreed to pay Rs 3 lakh and paid Rs 2 lakh cash to them on the spot.

Next day the scribes insisted him to pay the remaining one lakh rupees. Then the trader explained the issue to his family members, relatives and friends.

With their assistance, the trader lodged a complaint with the two-town police in Srikakulam city and even after that the scribes made attempts to compromise on the issue but the complainant approached the superintendent of police and with the involvement of the higher official case was registered against the three scribes under crime number 180/2024 under sections 308 (2), 127 (2), 351 (2) read with section 3 (5) of the Baratheeya Nyaya Samhitha (BNS) and also under section 3 (2) (V) (a) of SC and ST (prevention of atrocities) Act, 1989 as the sweet shop trader belonged to SC category.