Cops question Samuel at Delhi residence

A team of Kolkata Police questioned Narada News chief, Mathew Samuel, at his Delhi residence in connection with the incident in which a former Central minister had received a call from Munchipara area in Central Kolkata demanding extortion money of Rs 5 crore.

It may be mentioned that Samuel was found in a video footage that the caller had threatened to post on social networking sites if he didn't get the money.

A four-member team from Munchipara police station went to his residence at Dwarka in Delhi on Friday. They told Samuel that he was found sitting in one of the video footages that was present in the laptop that was recovered from a hotel near Sealdah station and wanted to know that how come the video footage was present in the caller's laptop.

Sources in Kolkata Police said Samuel told the cops about a complaint that was lodged at the Hauz Khas police station in Delhi and in another police station at Cochin in Kerala. He said that an employee was "terminated" from the company one and-a-half months ago. Before leaving the office following termination, he had transferred some footages, related to an "undercover story" of 2015, from the office archive to the laptop.

He told the police that the same person along with some others was trying to blackmail him and his colleague using the footages.

According to sources, he fell ill after speaking to the policemen from Kolkata and was admitted to a private hospital in Delhi.

It may be mentioned that Kolkata Police are probing into the incident on the basis of the complaint lodged by D P Yadav, the former minister from Bihar. He had lodged a complaint with Munchipara police alleging that he had been receiving threat calls demanding Rs 5 crore as extortion money or else the caller thereat to post some footage on certain websites.