Journalist Used Fake Yogi Adityanath Email To Get Ads From Firms: Cops

A first information report filed in 2016 has led to the arrest of a journalist for creating a fake email-ID in the name of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and forging his signature to promote his own newspaper.

The man, who was arrested by a special unit of the Delhi Police, has been identified as Manoj Kumar, working as a journalist in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, officials said.

To make it look as the chief minister was directly communicating for his office, several emails using the fake ID were sent by the accused to the Power Grid Corporation of India and other public sector companies such as the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL), seeking advertisements from them for his local newspaper. All the letters had forged signatures of Yogi Adtiyanath.

Mr Adityanath was then a Lok Sabha MP from Gorakhpur.

The accused owns a weekly local newspaper in Bhubaneswar. He also has an old case registered against him in Odisha's Cuttack for allegedly extorting money from an official, the police said.

Director General of Police KPS Malhotra said that Yogi Adityanath's then personal secretary Raj Bhushan Singh Rawat had approached the Delhi Police in 2016 and filed a complaint, stating that a fake email ID, yogiadityanath.mp@gmail.com, was being used to send instructions to public sector undertakings.

The accused was identified by tracking the IP address, and the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Police arrested him on Friday from Odisha, the police said.