Kashmiri journalist arrested in sex scam

Srinagar District Police have arrested a Kashmiri journalist after a university teacher filed a complaint of “rape, gang rape, extortion, sexploitation, trafficking and intimidation”against him.

Authoritative sources revealed to India Narrative that the complainant, who was a 25-year-old student in 2020 and is now holding a junior faculty position in a university, has also alleged that her sexploitation extended to the journalists’ officer-friends.

She has mentioned a ‘40-45-year-old officer’ but not identified him by name. She was alleged that she was also exploited by the journalist’s officer-friends. Sources said that the SIT would reach the roots of the charges and arrest “everybody, however influential” in case the complainant’s accusations were corroborated with evidence.

She has also accused the journalist, Nadeem Nadu, of lacing her food with drugs and then shooting a video after her clothes were taken off and then using the footage to blackmail her into having sex and extorting money from her.

The police have constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) even as the women’s police station in coordination with the cyber crime police have launched a thorough investigation into the case which is loosely reminiscent of an infamous sex scandal in which several influential persons, including two former Ministers of Mufti Sayeed’s government, had been arrested in 2006.

Arrested late on Friday night, Nadeem Nadu was not an accredited journalist but was working as an editor for a local English newspaper and a local news gathering agency for several years. He has 18,000 followers to his Facebook page.

A press release from Srinagar District Police on Saturday said that “self-proclaimed journalist” Nadeem Ahmed Ganie @Nadeem Nadu of Anantnag had been arrested in a rape case. It said that the complaint against him had been filed by a girl who alleged that the accused had forced her into a sexual relationship after she was deceived and drugged inside a house at Northern Foreshore Road near Shalimar in July 2020. “The victim also alleged that the accused took her objectionable pictures after sedating her and used these to blackmail her into forced sexual intercourse many times”, it added.

The press release said that the victim was a student in an institution in central Kashmir at the time of the occurrence of this crime.

According to the complaint on which the FIR is based, the university student fell in the trap when the accused flashed on social media that he would help if anybody needed it during a Covid lockdown in July 2020. She sought some help from the accused who drove all the way to Ganderbal with an unidentified accomplice. He told the complainant that he was going to pick up another girl student from a house.

Breaking her silence two years later, the University teacher has written in the complaint that she had faith in the police investigation and the administration of justice.

Repeated attempts to get a response from the detained journalist’s wife Mehvish Mumtaz failed as she did not pick up calls made by India Narrative to get her comments.