Two Madhya Pradesh-based journalists were released on Saturday (October 18, 2025), a day after they were detained from Bhopal by the Rajasthan Police for allegedly running “fake and defamatory news stories” on the State’s Deputy Chief Minister Diya Kumari and “demanding” ₹5 crore to remove them.
On Friday (October 17), a team of the Jaipur Police had detained ‘The Sootr’ news portal’s editor in chief Anand Pandey and its managing editor Harish Divekar from Bhopal and taken them to Rajasthan, prompting a series of backlash from various journalists across the two States as well as from leaders of the Opposition Congress.
Jaipur Additional Commissioner of Police Manish Agrawal told The Hindu that Mr. Pandey and Mr. Divekar were released on Saturday evening after interrogation and that no formal arrest was made in the case.
“We have let them go after the questioning for now but the investigation will continue in the case,” Mr. Agrawal said, adding that the two can be called for questioning again in required.
A spokesperson at ‘The Sootr’ said that the duo was released around 6 p.m. and “nothing concrete was found to prove the reports false”.
In an official release on Friday, the Jaipur Police said that a complaint was received on September 28 at the Karni Vihar police station by one Narendra Singh Rathore, claiming that the portal had been “continuously running false and misleading news for the past one month, conspiring to defame the Deputy CM [Ms. Kumari]”. The complainant alleged that Mr. Pandey and Mr. Divekar have made demands of crores of rupees, through some acquaintances, to remove the reports and not publish any in future.
The Jaipur Police said that a case was registered based on the complaint and that its investigation revealed that Mr. Pandey and Mr. Divekar had “illegally demanded Rs5 crore to remove the false reports from ‘The Sootr’ and ‘The Capital’ portals, and not publish any other false reports in future”.
They had “threatened” to run a campaign called ‘Destroy Diya’ against the Deputy CM, in case the money was not paid, the police said.
Reacting to the detention, ‘The Sootr’ had on its website termed the detention “cowardly” and that the Rajasthan Police had acted “without any allegation or FIR”.
The news outlet had published multiple stories alleging Ms. Kumari’s involvement in various corrupt practices such as illegal encroachment of land. The stories included a series titled ‘Diya Tale Andhera [Darkness Under the Lamp]’.
Published – October 19, 2025 01:52 am IST
