Cobrapost is a non-profit Indian news website that was founded in 2005 by Aniruddha Bahal – the co-founder of
Tehelka
''Tehelka'' (Hindi: Sensation) is an Indian news magazine known for its investigative journalism and sting operations. According to the British newspaper ''The Independent'', the ''Tehelka'' was founded by Tarun Tejpal, Aniruddha Bahal and a ...
.
It is particularly known for its undercover investigative journalism.
Description
According to Kalyani Chadha, Cobrapost led by Aniruddha Bahal consolidated undercover sting-generated news genre in India in 2005. Its secretly recorded conversations with 11 elected members of Indian parliament who were aired by ''
Aaj Tak
''Aaj Tak'' () is an Indian Hindi-language news channel owned by TV Today Network, part of the New Delhi-based media conglomerate Living Media group (India Today Group)
Aaj Tak HD
On 14 December 2018, Aaj Tak launched India's first Hindi h ...
''. The news piece showed how bribes can manipulate the proceedings of the Indian parliament.
Undercover investigative journalism
Operation Duryodhana: money for parliamentary procedures
In 2005, along with
Aaj Tak
''Aaj Tak'' () is an Indian Hindi-language news channel owned by TV Today Network, part of the New Delhi-based media conglomerate Living Media group (India Today Group)
Aaj Tak HD
On 14 December 2018, Aaj Tak launched India's first Hindi h ...
, ''Cobrapost'' conducted a sting operation that exposed eleven
members
Member may refer to:
* Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon
* Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set
* In object-oriented programming, a member of a class
** Field (computer science), entries in ...
(MPs) – ten from the
Lok Sabha
The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-p ...
and one from the
Rajya Sabha
The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...
– accepting money for
tabling
In computing, memoization or memoisation is an optimization technique used primarily to speed up computer programs by storing the results of expensive function calls and returning the cached result when the same inputs occur again. Memoizatio ...
their questions in the
Parliament of India
The Parliament of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and the Lok Sabha (House of ...
. The MPs allegedly accepted between and as bribes. This investigation led to expulsion of eleven MPs from the Parliament,
the largest expulsion of MPs in the country's history.
The eleven MPs expelled in December 2005, after Cobrapost's sting report, were from four political parties: seven from the
Bharatiya Janata Party
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the List of ruling p ...
, two from the
Bahujan Samaj Party
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is a national level political party in India that was formed to represent Bahujans (literally means "community in majority"), referring to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes (OBC), al ...
, one from the
Rashtriya Janata Dal
The Rashtriya Janata Dal ( RJD; translation: ''National People's Party'') is an Indian political party, based in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Kerala. The party was founded in 1997 by Lalu Prasad Yadav.
The party's support base has tradit ...
and one from the
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British E ...
.
In 2007, a Rajya Sabha committee headed by Congress party leader Karan Singh stated that Cobrapost abetted corruption by offering a murky deal to the members of parliament. It filed a criminal complaint (FIR) against Cobrapost and Aaj Tak for the "offence of abetment as defined under Section 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 by carrying out Operation Duryodhan and telecasting the same", according to ''The Times of India''.
Purchase of Rajya Sabha seat
In a 2010 sting operation conducted in association with the IBN group, Cobrapost alleged that
Kanwar Deep Singh
Dr Kanwar Deep Singh (born 21 August 1961), also known as K. D. Singh, is an Indian businessman turned politician and Member of Parliament (MP), Rajya Sabha representing the All India Trinamool Congress, but first elected to the Indian parliam ...
was elected to India's
Rajya Sabha
The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...
from
Jharkhand
Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . I ...
after he bought the votes of the state's members of legislative assembly (MLAs).
According to ''The Times of India'', the IBN-Cobrapost exposé allegedly showed MLAs from the Congress party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha asking for bribes "to the tune of from middlemen in exchange for their votes in favor of a Rajya Sabha candidate". The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha dismissed the allegations in the Cobrapost report because it lacked any credibility.
Operation Red Spider: black money laundering
In March 2013, Cobrapost alleged that three banks in India – HDFC, ICICI and Axis – were involved in
money laundering
Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdicti ...
, using false accounts to convert
black money
A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the ...
into white.
In an undercover operation it called Operation Red Spider, Cobrapost stated that it had secretly recorded several videotapes to uncover corrupt practices at the three banks, after its staff posed as a minister's aide.
According to ''The Hindu'', while it cannot vouch that the Cobrapost videotapes were authentic, the tapes show that the employees of these three banks were offering to convert black money into white.
Each of the three banks issued a press statement that denied the allegations and offered their cooperation in any investigation, according to ''The Hindu'' newspaper.
[ After Cobrapost allegations were made public, the Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram stated that he had talked with the chairmen of two of three banks and his office "wasn't jumping to any conclusions".][
According to Cobrapost, the staff at the three Banks offered to use forged Pan Cards and multiple accounts for their clients to launder money. It added that the banks offer their clients to use their bank lockers to store cash and "maintain fictitious accounts for seven years saying that all details vanish after this period."]
The undercover operation alleged that the education minister Sake Sailijanath of the Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British E ...
party government in Andhra Pradesh
Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...
was willing to guarantee a hawala
Hawala or hewala ( ar, حِوالة , meaning ''transfer'' or sometimes ''trust''), also known as in Persian, and or in Somali, is a popular and informal value transfer system based on the performance and honour of a huge network of money ...
transaction. Sailijanath, according to ''The Economic Times'', admitted that "he just put in a word to the bank officials" to help his friend needing a loan. On 15 March 2013, the ICICI Bank suspended 18 employees. On 16 March 2013 HDFC Bank authorised Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu to undertake an autonomous forensic probe of bank employees assisting customers to circumvent income tax.
The deputy governor of RBI, Chakrabarty, in a statement on 21 March 2014, denied Cobrapost allegations and stated that not a single corrupt black money transaction actually happened at the accused banks. He added that "there is no scam that has happened, as no transaction has taken place. Let us not necessarily downgrade ourselves. Our system to prevent money laundering is perfect, absolutely nothing (wrong with it)". According to the ''Firstpost'' news website, Cobrapost "slammed the Reserve Bank of India" for giving a clean chit to the corrupt banks it had named.
In May 2013, Cobrapost expanded its allegations to include twelve state-owned banking institutions such as the State Bank of India, Bank Of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Indian Bank, IDBI, Indian Overseas Bank, Dena Bank, Corporation Bank, Allahabad Bank, Orient Bank of Commerce and Central Bank of India. It also alleged that seven private sector banks in India were also complicit in black money operations, namely Yes Bank, Dhanlaxmi Bank, Federal Bank, DCB Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank. Cobrapost further alleged that four major Insurance companies in India were active in black money operations, including the LIC, Reliance Life, Birla Life and the Tata AIG joint venture.
The Reserve Bank of India
The Reserve Bank of India, chiefly known as RBI, is India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. It is under the ownership of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It is responsible f ...
(RBI) launched a detailed audit and investigation after the Cobrapost allegations. It scrutinized the books of accounts, the compliance and internal control procedures, and the operations at the accused companies. In June 2013, the RBI issued a statement that it found "no evidence of money laundering" but added that "any conclusive inference in this regard can be drawn only by an end-to-end investigation of the transactions by tax and enforcement agencies". The RBI found the three banks to be guilty of violating the RBI-required "Know Your Customer" norms, and fined each bank a sum between 1 crore and 5 crore rupees.[ In July 2013, the RBI fined twenty-two additional banks in India for the same violations, and issued cautionary letters to seven other banks including Citibank, Standard Chartered and Barclays where it did not find any violations.
]
The Stalkers
In November 2013, ''Cobrapost'' along with the website ''Gulail'' claimed in tapes titled ''The Stalkers'' that in 2009, then Home Minister of Gujarat, Amit Shah
Amit Anil Chandra Shah (born 22 October 1964) is an Indian politician currently serving as the Minister of Home Affairs since 2019 and the first Minister of Co-operation of India since 2021. He served as the President of the Bharatiya Janata P ...
ordered an illegal snooping operation on a woman, at the behest of their ''saheb'' (). The Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British E ...
alleged that the ''saheb'' was Narendra Modi
Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...
, the then Chief minister of Gujarat.
Audio tapes revealed conversations between Amit Shah and IPS GL Singhal, ordering Singhal's team to surveil a young woman architect from Bangalore due to instructions from ''saheb''. The police followed her inside malls, restaurants, gyms, and tracked her scheduled flights, hotel bookings, and visits to her mother at a hospital. The team was also asked to surveil IAS Pradeep Sharma, who knew about the relationship between Modi and the woman.
In May 2016, the woman told the Supreme Court that she was "thankful" that the Gujarat police was assigned to tail her, and urged the judges to block investigations to determine whether the surveillance was legal and ordered by Modi, who had become India's Prime Minister in 2014.
IAS Pradeep Sharma was suspended and arrested in 2016, under various cases of money laundering and corruption pertaining to past service tenure.
Operation Blue Virus
In December 2013, Cobrapost accused many IT companies of misusing social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...
to help politicians with fake "likes" and "followers" to improve their popularity. Cobrapost alleged that its associate editor Syed Masroor Hasan approached two dozen professional IT companies and they offered help in "reputation management" and to tarnish the reputations of political opponents.[ Of the two dozen sting operations it conducted in 2013, Cobrapost stated that the name of Gujarat chief minister "Narendra Modi cropped up in around 5 to 6" stings.][ According to Cobrapost, there was no guarantee that the same IT firms were working for one particular party only.][Cobrapost stings Narendra Modi again, alleges Facebook, YouTube, Twitter 'misuse']
Financial Express (4 December 2013) Cobrapost claimed how the undercover investigation uncovered infraction of the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and the Income Tax Act, 1961, actionable under several provisions of the Indian Penal Code.
Operation Falcon Claw
An undercover operation resulting in a video named Operation Falcon Claw showed that eleven MPs from different parties agreed to lobby for a fictitious foreign company, and also that MPs received money ranging from to for issuing recommendation letters.
Operation Janambhoomi
On 3 April 2014, ''Cobrapost'' published on their website about their investigation, Operation Janambhoomi, into the conspiracy behind the demolition of the Babri Masjid
The demolition of the Babri Masjid was illegally carried out on 6 December 1992 by a large group of activists of the Vishva Hindu Parishad and allied organisations. The 16th-century Babri Masjid in the city of Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh, had ...
, in which they bring to light the conspiracy behind the events of 6 December 1992, which rewrote the history of modern India on communal lines.
Operation 136: paid news
In March 2018, Cobrapost.com alleged that its undercover operation had uncovered the widespread continuing practice of journalistic corruption through paid news in India. The allegations charged that numerous major Indian media groups were willing to accept money to plug polarizing Hindu nationalism
Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expression of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent. "Hindu nationalism" or the correct term ''Hindū rāṣṭ ...
ideas as news in exchange for money. In its sting operation, Cobrapost stated that it approached the Times Group – the publisher of ''The Times of India'', the ''India Today
''India Today'' is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media India Limited. It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. In 2014, ''India Today'' launched a new on ...
'' group, the ''Hindustan Times
''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media, an entity controlled by the KK Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia.
It was founded by Sunder Singh Ly ...
'' group, the Zee group, the ''New Indian Express'' group and other media houses – where it offered a payment of up to in cash to publish stories on Krishna
Krishna (; sa, कृष्ण ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme god in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is on ...
and the ''Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita (; sa, श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, lit=The Song by God, translit=śrīmadbhagavadgītā;), often referred to as the Gita (), is a 700- verse Hindu scripture that is part of the epic ''Mahabharata'' ( ...
'' to first indirectly and later directly promote Hindutva ideology, communal and political gains.[ All three media houses agreed to the offer to plug paid news, alleged Cobrapost, but mentioned that they may editorially criticize the activities. The groups discussed ways to make large cash payments, alleged Cobrapost.][
According to Cobrapost, the owners, as well as the senior executives, of major Indian media houses consented to engage in campaigns to induce communal discord and polarize the Indian electorate.] The twenty seven media houses and organizations alleged to be corrupt by Cobrapost included the Times Group, Lokmat, Radio One, Suvarna News, Indigo 91.9FM, Bharat Samachar, Swaraj Express News, Sun Group, ABN Andhrajyothi, TV5 News, Dinamalar, Big FM, K News, India Voice, MVTV News, Open Media Network and others.[Cobrapost: Sting claims media houses open to ‘paid Hindutva content’, firms call it misleading]
Krishn Kaushik, The Indian Express (27 May 2018)[ The Cobrapost sting alleged, reports ''The Indian Express'', that senior executives involved in paid news included Kalli Purie, Vinnet Jain, Ajay Shekhar Sharma, Brijesh Mishra, Anil Dua, Purushottam Vaishnava, Rajiv Hegde from various major media groups in India.][ According to Cobrapost, the Bartaman Patrika and Dainik Sambad declined to distribute advertisement with religious overtones.
After the release of the Cobrapost.com sting report on "paid news", the Times Group in a 26 May 2018 response called the report as "false, malicious, dishonest", a manufactured "fictitious scandal" presented with doctored quotes, and that the allegations do not reflect what actually happened.][ The Times Group alleged that its journalists were involved in a sting on the Cobrapost team to uncover "imposters" and "criminals on bail with a past record of fraud and forgery" they suspected were posing as businessmen and organization trying to push a political ideology. No cash or payment was ever exchanged during this operation to or from Cobrapost, stated the Times Group.][Cobrapost Sting: Big Media Houses Say Yes to Hindutva, Black Money, Paid News]
The Wire (26 May 2018) The ''India Group'' similarly denied Cobrapost claims, stated that its editorial team never met the Cobrapost personnel, its advertisement group listens to all those who approach them, they condemn paid news, and consider Cobrapost's claim of paid news at ''India Today'' to be malicious.[ The Suvarna News group with a regional presence in south India stated that Cobrapost maliciously altered the recordings and that its allegations are baseless. It further stated that they had alerted the state police officials of Cobrapost staff when he first contacted them to publish religious content.][
The New Indian Express Group denied the Cobrapost allegations, stated that they only met with the advertisement team who never promised "news" coverage and only discussed "advertisements", and alleged that their report had "conveniently buried" the cautionary statements about "legal vetting", checks and approval told to Cobrapost.][ The Zee group similarly stated that the Cobrapost report presents a "deliberate and fraudulent misinterpretation and concoction of actual facts", by "craftily editing the video clips, the essence of the conversation has been distorted in a manner that the truth is compromised and a different issue is portrayed in order to harm and hurt the reputation of Zee Media".][ In June 2018, Cobrapost denied Zee's statements and alleged that it "has not falsified, fabricated, concocted, tampered, doctored or altered in any manner whatsoever".][As Zee Threatens Defamation on Sting, Cobrapost Sees Attack on Media Freedom]
The Wire (6 June 2018)
According to Cobrapost, it did not finance the sting operations, an independent reporter Pushp Sharma self-financed the cost of meeting and secretly recording the owners and senior executives of 27 media houses in India. Once Sharma approached Cobrapost, it purchased the work product from Sharma. Cobrapost's founder Aniruddha Bahal admitted that the sting operations never made any payment to any media group or executive, and the tapes were "all about showing intent".[
]
DHFL allegations
In a press conference on 29 January 2019, Cobrapost alleged that the Indian mortgage lender Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) promoters "siphoned off about through a network of shell companies". The company called the allegations as "mischievous". On 6 March 2019, according to the ''Business Standard'', an independent chartered accountant firm investigated these allegations and disputed the Cobrapost report. According to the audit completed by the firm, DHFL has "not promoted any of the 26 shell companies" that Cobrapost alleged. It further stated that the companies alleged to be involved in the fraud by Cobrapost "do not have any directors in common" and "DHFL or its promoters do not have any shareholding in these companies" as claimed. The auditors disagreed with Cobrapost allegations, but found that the DHFL executives failed to follow their standard operating procedures and inadequately monitored its borrowers.DHFL surges 20% after independent CA report on Cobrapost allegations
Business Standard (6 March 2019)
Operation Karaoke
Cobrapost carried out around 36 sting operations on popular comedians, Bollywood celebrities and small screen actors. The undercover reporters disguised themselves as the marketing team of different political parties and tried striking deals with the celebrities to do indirect marketing for their client 9 months in advance to the 2019 Indian general election
General elections were held in India in seven phases from 11 April to 19 May 2019 to elect the members of the 17th Lok Sabha. Votes were counted and the result was declared on 23 May. Around 912 million people were eligible to vote, and voter ...
. Indirect marketing included posting of tweets, Instagram and Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
posts from the actors' private accounts in support of the party's "good works" and defense of other works. The content on social media was to be presented in a non-political manner rather as a personal ideology. The celebrities demanded payment ranging from lakhs to crores on frequency or monthly basis, mode of payment being cash so as to evade taxes. The reporters convinced Vivek Oberoi
Vivek Anand Oberoi (born 3 September 1976) is an Indian actor who mainly works in Hindi cinema, in addition to working in few Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Tamil films.
Early life
Vivek Oberoi was born in Hyderabad, Telangana, to a Pu ...
, Rajpal Yadav
Rajpal Yadav (born 16 March 1971) is an Indian actor which works in Hindi, Punjabi Marathi, Telugu and one Gujarati and one Bengali and one avadhi, comedian and film maker known for his work in Indian Film industry. His breakthrough came in ...
, Ameesha Patel, Sunny Leone
Karenjit Kaur Vohra (born May 13, 1981), known by her stage name Sunny Leone (), is a Canadian-American model and actress in the American and Indian film industries. She is a former pornographic actress. She was born in Canada to an Indian S ...
, Mahima Chaudhry
Mahima Chaudhry is an Indian actress and model who worked in Hindi films. During the 1990s, Chaudhry did a few modelling assignments and appeared in several television commercials before venturing into films. She made her acting debut in the 1997 ...
, Minissha Lamba
Minissha Lamba (born 18 January 1985) is an Indian actress and poker player who appeared in Hindi films. She made her debut with ''Yahaan'' (2005). Her other notable films include ''Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.'' (2007), ''Bachna Ae Haseeno'' (200 ...
, Poonam Pandey, Sonu Sood
Sonu Sood (born 30 July 1973) is an Indian actor, film producer, model, humanitarian, and philanthropist who works predominantly in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada films. In 2009, he received the Andhra Pradesh State Nandi Award for Best Vil ...
, Raju Srivastav
Satya Prakash Srivastav (25 December 1963 – 21 September 2022), known professionally as Raju Srivastav and often credited as Gajodhar, was an Indian comedian, actor and politician. He had been a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party since 201 ...
, Ganesh Acharya
Ganesh Acharya is an Indian choreographer, film director, and actor who prominently works in Bollywood.
He won the National Film Award for Best Choreography for his work on the songs "Hawan Kund" from Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013) and "Gori tu lat ...
, Jackie Shroff, Kailash Kher
Kailash Kher (born 7 July 1973) is an Indian music composer and singer. He sings songs with a music style influenced by Indian folk music and Sufi music. He was inspired by the classical musicians' Pandit Kumar Gandharva, Pandit Hridaynath Ma ...
, Mika Singh
Mika Singh (born 10 June 1977) is an Indian singer. His songs include "Bas Ek King" ('' Singh Is Kinng''), "Mauja Hi Mauja" ('' Jab We Met''), "Ibn-e-Batuta" (''Ishqiya''), and "Dhanno" ('' Housefull''). He has released several solo albums and ...
, Rakhi Sawant
Rakhi Sawant (born Neeru Bheda; 25 November 1978) is an Indian dancer, model, actress and television talk show host, who has appeared in many Hindi and a few Kannada, Marathi, Odia, Telugu and Tamil films and was a contestant on the first ...
, Shakti Kapoor
Shakti Kapoor (born Sunil Kapoor; 3 September 1952) is an Indian actor and comedian who appears in Bollywood films. Known for his villainous and comic roles in Hindi films, he has featured in over 600 films. In the 1980s and 1990s, Kapoor teame ...
, Shreyas Talpade
Shreyas Talpade (born 27 January 1976) is an Indian actor, film director and producer who appears in Hindi and Marathi films. He has appeared in several critically and commercially successful films. He is better known for his role as Shah Ruk ...
, Krushna Abhishek among others. Abhijeet Bhattacharya
Abhijeet Bhattacharya (born 30 October 1958), better known as Abhijeet, is a Bollywood playback singer. Abhijeet has sung 6034 songs in over 1000 films.
Personal life
Abhijeet was born to a Kanpur-based Bengali businessman turned editor Dhir ...
went a step ahead and offered to create hateful content. However, a handful of celebrities declined the offer including Vidya Balan
Vidya Balan (pronounced ; born 1 January 1979) is an Indian actress. Known for pioneering a change in the portrayal of women in Hindi cinema with her roles in female-led films, she is the recipient of several awards, including a National Fi ...
, Saumya Tandon
Saumya Tandon (born 3 November 1984) is an Indian actress and television presenter, best known for her portrayal of Anita Mishra in the Hindi sitcom television series '' Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain!''. She has been a host on various TV shows like ''D ...
, Arshad Warsi
Arshad Warsi (born 19 April 1968) is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi films. He is the recipient of several awards including a Filmfare Award from five nominations and is noted for acting in varied film genres.
Before making his acting deb ...
and Raza Murad
Raza Murad (born 23 November 1950) is an Indian actor who appears primarily in Hindi films.
He has over 250 Bollywood film credits. Murad has also appeared in Bhojpuri and other regional-language films and on Hindi television.
Early life
He ...
citing their non-political stand and ideology.
Once the videos were out, they attracted no mainstream media attention and the celebrities refused to comment on the same. The operations have raised a major doubt on the credibility of the celebrities' political stands and ideologies.
References
External links
*
{{Media of India
2003 establishments in Delhi
English-language magazines published in India
Hindi-language magazines
News magazines published in India
Online magazines published in India
Political magazines published in India
Magazines established in 2003
Magazines published in Delhi
Investigative journalism