SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, July 20: The notorious coal trader Parmeswar Ray alias Manager Ray was arrested by police from a hotel in Barakar, West Bengal on Tuesday. He is co-accused along with Arup Chatterjee, the head of News 11 Bharat.
After interrogation, police produced him in the residential court of judicial magistrate Vishal Raj on Tuesday evening from where he was forwarded to 14 days of judicial custody.
The arrest has been made based on an FIR lodged in Govindpur police station of the district by coal trader Rakesh Kumar on June 27 charging that News 11 head Arup Chatterjee in connivance with Manager Ray was demanding extortion and blackmailing him in the name of airing news.
Dhanbad police arrested Arup Chatterjee from an apartment in Kanke, Ranchi in the wee hours of Monday. Manager Ray had been gone underground since then. But on Tuesday morning, a special team of Dhanbad police under deputy superintendent of police Amar Kumar Pandey picked him up from a hotel in Barakar near the Jharkhand- Bengal border.
The arrest was made in the wee hour but senior officers of the district police kept it secret till the evening of Tuesday. Earlier in the day, Arup Chatterjee was released on bail on the order of the Jharkhand High Court.
The police officials said besides extortion and blackmailing cases in Govindpur police station, there 21 cases are lodged in different police stations against manager Ray.
