Bhopal: The members of alleged honey trapping case had big dreams as it's kingpin Shweta Vijay Jain wanted to become most powerful lobbyist of Madhya Pradesh, sources in the probe team revealed.
According to sources, Jain also attempted gaining prominence in the field of politics, however, after failing to succeed there, she recruited Aarti Dayal, Shweta Swapnil Jain, Barakha Bhatnagar and other women to target powerful people with an aim to achieve her dream of becoming the most powerful liaison of the state.
Shweta left her home city, Sagar and moved to Bhopal targetting city's Arera club to start the racket to con people holding powerful positions, especially bureaucrats.
According to the sources in the SIT team, which is probing the case, the accused women used to lure officers and establish a physical relationship with them.
The women used to film the sexual act in order to use it later for blackmailing the officers. The sources further revealed that the gang also tasted success in conning officers as they got crores of rupees, properties, luxury cars from bureaucrats, engineers and leaders through extortion.
Motivated by back to back successes, Jain and her gang members began playing the role of a liaison between the officers and corporate and construction companies. She, the sources said, got allocated several big tenders to her clients using her contact in bureaucratic circles. She also managed to secure government tenders through her links, the sources added.
According to highly placed sources in the government, several senior officers of the state government were in her net whom she repeatedly used to secure favourable tenders in Public Relations, Urban Administration, Agriculture, Forest, Culture, Water Resources and Labour departments, amassing properties worth crores.
State minister Jitu Patwari has termed extortion as a "serious matter" and asserted that the government was resolved to take stringent action against the people involved in the case.
"If an officer is involved in any such activities and commits a crime, it somehow affects state exchequer and the government suffers loss in the tendering process," he said, adding that no guilty will be spared.
A special investigating team is investigating the case and six persons, including five women, have been arrested. The incident came to light after an Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) engineer had filed a complaint alleging that two women were blackmailing him by threatening to make some objectionable videos viral. The Civic engineer was also suspended from the service by the IMC.
