A CEO of a small-time private TV news channel, Amal Jain, has been arrested on changes of fraud and blackmail. Among those he tried to extract money from were Union Minister Subodh Kumar Sahay and former Union minister Yashwant Sinha.

Denying him bail, the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ranchi, said 50-year-old Jain used his position and power to extort money from police officers, businessmen and politicians, and took favours to promote them.

Apart from Sahay and Sinha, according to the police, Jain targeted former chief pilot of Jharkhand Ajay Kumar Srivastava, DSP Saryu Paswan and RJD MLA Videsh Singh.

Having served as a correspondent of Jain TV for more than a decade, Jain is the CEO of 365 Din channel, owned by Ranchi-based Heritage Televenture and Media Private Ltd. The channel obtained an operating licence in 2007.

It was allegedly Jain’s demand for Rs 24 lakh from Krishnanand Narnolia, the Chief Managing Director of MS Narnolia Securities Ltd , that backfired.

Narnolia refused to pay up and approached the Federation of Jharkhand Chamber of Commerce, which came to his rescue and held a dharna demanding Jain’s arrest. Narnolia then filed an FIR recounting how two staff members of 365 Din had come to his office for an interview in June 2009, and that once it was over, he had got a call from Jain demanding money. He was threatened that if he did not pay up, he would be in trouble.

The two staff members reportedly returned on June 22 and repeated the demands. “When I did not oblige, the news channel started telecasting fake reports in order to defame our company. We complained against him at the channel’s Kolkata office, but no action was taken,” Narnolia says in his FIR.

... contd.