Journos in trouble for airing Nithyananda footage

Bangalore, May 14: While Swami Nithyananda's sexcapades were exposed to the world through the media, a television journalist has invited trouble by airing the footage of the controversial godman's interrogation.

A television journalist, MS Raghavendra, producer of a daily crime programme on TV9, has reportedly come under the scanner of the Karnataka Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for airing the footage of sex scandal-tainted Swami Nithyananda's questioning, said a report in NDTV.

Raghavendra, who procured the CCTV footage from a source, had aired the visuals showing Nithyananda being taken out of his cell to a chamber where he was questioned by CID sleuths.

The investigating agency now is planning on booking him on charges of conspiring against the state and data theft.

A report in Mid-Day said several journalists have comes under the scanner of the CID and notices have been issued against them. The technician, who installed the CCTV in the CID chamber, was also recently arrested.

Quoting sources in the CID, the tabloid said that the attempt to book the journalists is inspired is a way for the CID sleuths to protect their own heads.

"Heads would have rolled in CID and the higher ups wanted to save their skin, while protecting the colleagues. And the easy way out was to build a theft case and book vulnerable journalists instead," Mid-Day quotes a source as saying.

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