Honey-trap case: 5 women sent to judicial custody

A Madhya Pradesh court on Tuesday remanded five women, arrested in connection with a honey-trap and blackmailing racket, in judicial custody till October 14.

After their police custody got over, the five accused -- Shweta Swapnil Jain (48), Shweta Vijay Jain (39) Arati Dayal (29), Monika Yadav (19) and Barkha Soni (34) -- were produced before the court of judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) Manish Bhatt who remanded them in judicial custody.

Meanwhile, talking to reporters outside the court, Shweta Vijay Jain's lawyer Dharmendra Gurjar alleged that police beat up his client during interrogation and harassed her mentally to an extent that she slit her wrist with a glass in the bathroom.

"The police do not have any concrete evidence in the so-called honey-trap case. In fact, this case has become a headache for the police," he claimed.

However, district prosecution officer Mohammed Akram Sheikh dismissed Gurjar's allegations, saying no accused was tortured physically during the period of police custody.

He said all the five accused were produced the court after their medical examination.

The five women and their driver were arrested from Bhopal and Indore last month.

The driver is already in judicial custody.

A honey-trap racket allegedly involving bureaucrats and politicians was busted with the arrest of the five women and their driver on September 19, following a complaint by Indore Municipal Corporation's superintending engineer Harbhajan Singh.