26-year-old Archana Nag is accused of recording the sexual actions of politicians, businesspeople, and government officials in Odisha between 2018 and 2022 and then demanding money from them.
According to people familiar with the situation, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) launched its investigation into the Archana Nag sex scandal on Wednesday by filing an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIE) in response to allegations that numerous Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leaders, businessmen, and officials participated in large-scale money laundering.
The Bhubaneswar police filed first information reports (FIRs) against Archana Nag, 28, who is accused of filming the sexual actions of politicians, businessmen, and government officials in order to demand money from them between 2018 and 2022. ED has previously obtained copies of these FIRs.
According to an ED officer, complaints have also been filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against Archana’s spouse Jagabandhu Chand and her business partners Khageswar Sahu and Shraddhanjali Behera (PMLA).
A five-person team with an associate director as their leader has been assembled to look into the situation and gather additional proof. In this case, ED will probably call in more witnesses.
After receiving a complaint that she was coercing women into prostitution and then using them to blackmail powerful individuals, Archana Nag, who is from the Kalahandi district, was detained by the Bhubaneswar Commissionerate Police last month. Her PC, laptop, pen drive, and mobile phone were all taken by the police from her home. Later, her spouse Jagabandhu Chand was also detained on comparable allegations.
After a girl named Shraddhanjali Behera claimed that Odia film producer Akshay Parija was sexually abusing her by promising her a role in an Odia film, the plot came to light last month. After Parija filed a complaint with the city police alleging that Nag and Behera were blackmailing him over his pornographic photos and demanding money from him, the latter filed a complaint with police alleging that Nag had laced her drink with an intoxicant a few years prior and was blackmailing her after recording some of her pornographic photos. She claimed that Nag used to ask her to extort powerful people, including politicians and businessmen.
The situation set off a political uproar, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seeking to enter Naveen Patnaik’s home on Monday to protest his “silence” regarding the case and demand that a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation be launched. The government agencies have begun looking into the cases from Delhi, according to Union Education Minister and senior BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan, who stated this on Tuesday. This means that anybody connected to Archana Nag’s scheme cannot escape punishment.
While the Congress applauded the ED investigation, BJD MLA Amar Satpathy claimed that by bringing up the central investigation during the campaign for the Dhamnagar by-election, the BJP had revealed its desperation. Such hostility and threats, according to Satpathy, are the results of the anxiety over an impending loss in the bypoll.
Prasanta Patnaik