Thiruvananthapuram: The CEO and four employees of a private Malayalam TV channel, which had aired the alleged sleaze talk involving a minister leading to his resignation, were on Tuesday arrested by the Kerala Police on charges of airing sexually explicit content.
The five employees of Mangalam TV were arrested under charges of criminal conspiracy and Section 67 and 67 (a) of IT Act.
The channel had initially claimed that the then transport minsiter A K Saseendran had lewd telephone conversation with a woman who had approached him regarding certain favours. Later, it was alleged that it was a honey trap.
On May 30th, channel CEO R Ajith Kumar tendered an apology for airing the purported audio clip and admitted it was a "sting operation" involving one of their woman journalists and not a housewife, as it had claimed earlier.
On Monday, the Kerala High Court had rejected their interim prayer when their anticipatory bail petitions came up for hearing.
Police had last week registered an FIR against them, including Ajith Kumar, on a complaint by the youth wing of the Nationalist Congress Party, for airing "obscene conversation".
The channel on its opening day on March 26 had aired an audio clip of the purported talk of transport Minister A K Saseendran, NCP representative in the LDF cabinet, with a woman, following which he had resigned the same day.
The state government had on March 30 ordered a probe by a special investigation team into the incident.
The government had earlier announced a judicial inquiry by a former district judge.
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