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'Stings' rattle Indian media

India's competitive media market has more reporters resort to faking stories.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published September 14, 2007

NEW DELHI - The report was sensational: A math teacher in New Delhi turned her classroom into a brothel, forcing high-school students into prostitution.

A television reporter set up a sting to expose her, posing as a customer and secretly taping a conversation with the teacher. A young woman who said she was one of the teacher's students described her ordeal on camera.

After the report aired, a mob attacked the school, dragged the teacher outside and beat her. Protesters set a car on fire and stoned passing traffic. Police arrested the teacher "solely on the basis of the sting operation," Delhi Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat told the Hindustan Times.

But there was one catch: Police now believe it was all made up.

Rashmi Singh, the young woman posing as a student-turned-prostitute, was neither of those things, police say, but appears to have been an ambitious reporter looking to make her mark. The reporter posing as a customer, Prakash Singh, was allegedly working with someone the teacher owed money to, according to authorities.

The teacher, Uma Khurana, was fired from her job and spent 10 days in jail. She was released on bail Monday.

She's not the only purported-sting victim: On Monday, three men were arrested for posing as journalists in an attempt to blackmail a member of Parliament.

The three men tried to bribe parliamentarian Rameshwar Oraon, then announced they were conducting a TV news sting. They told him they would quash the report if he paid them.

Oraon didn't fall for it, and the three were charged with impersonation and extortion.

In the school-prostitution sting, Prakash Singh and Rashmi Singh have been arrested on criminal conspiracy charges, along with the man to whom the teacher owed money.

And Khurana is reportedly considering a defamation case against the TV channel, Live India.

That fake sting operation - dubbed "Stink Operation" by local newspapers - is a glaring example of the dishonesty some say is rife in India's hypercompetitive media world.

Information and Broadcasting Minister P.R. Dasmunsi is expected to use the fake sting to bolster his case that the media needs governmental oversight.

[Last modified September 13, 2007, 23:48:44]