NEW DELHI: The immigration officials has detained Mathew Samuel, the former managing editor of Tehelka magazine, at Indira Gandhi International Airport in the national capital on Saturday evening after he was landed following a look out notice by West Bengal police.
He was the one of the founding members of the magazine and after resigning from the organization in February, this year he started his own news portal -- Narada News. Just before West Bengal assembly election, his organization released a 24-minute video of a sting operation, purportedly showed 16 MLAs and five MPs and one senior police officer, close to the leaders, promising favours and accepting wads of currency notes from representatives of a fictitious firm. The five TMC parliamentarians shown in the sting video are Saugata Roy, Sultan Ahmad, Suvendu Adhikari, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Prasun Banerjee.
After TMC came into power, the chief Minister ordered a probe into the matter and he was summoned and thereafter a look out notice was issued against him.
Acting on the lookout notice issued by Kolkata police, immigration officials detained Samuel at the airport. He was detained soon after he landed at the airport from Dubai, Central Industrial Security Force sources said. He will be handed over to Calcutta Police team that is on way to Delhi.
"As soon as I landed at the airport from Dubai immigration officials detained me saying two look out notices were issued against me by Calcutta Police. I am under their custody right now and they told me that I will be handed over to Calcutta police team that is on its way," Samuel told Express.
In the meantime, Samuel's secretary Angel Abraham said:"Samuel's advocate in Calcutta has gone to Kolkata police commissioner to say that the High Court has stayed further police action against him on August 5. The next hearing is on August 19. Right now our effort is to try and get him out of the airport and since police proceedings have been stayed. He was coming back from Dubai by a Jet Airways flight and was travelling alone."
The Deputy Commissioner of Delhi Police Dinesh Kumar Gupta said, “The immigration officials have detained him. The moment they will hand over to Delhi police we look into the matter.”
Samuel, however, on Thursday wrote to Kolkata Police asking it to reconsider his request to withdraw the summon against him in connection with its probe into the Narada sting operation, since the matter is sub-judice and under consideration of the Kolkata High Court.
Samuel has been booked under IPC sections 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation), 500 (defamation), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief), 171(G) (false statement in connection with an election) and 120(B) (criminal conspiracy).