Mumbai: Mumbai police in a remand note said that Arnab Goswami, Republic TV editor paid lakhs of Rupees to senior officials of BARC, TV rating agency. He paid including former CEO Partho Dasgupta, to manipulate the channel’s TRP, said police in a remand note submitted to a magistrate’s court on Monday.

The police also alleged that former CEO who was arrested last week – was the “mastermind” and fudged viewership numbers and data for financial gain. The police made the claims while requesting further custody of the former CEO in order to ascertain if more such payments were made.

The note alleged Goswami paid Dasgupta and another senior BARC official – former COO Romil Ramgarhia, who is accused of “providing secret and confidential information to certain channels” – to manipulate the TRP of Republic TV’s English and Hindi channels.

According to the Mumbai’s crime branch remand note “Dasgupta misused his official position and manipulated TRP of specific news channels broadcast by ARG Outlier Media Pvt Ltd, such as Republic Bharat and Republic TV. Dasgupta, while serving as CEO of BARC, got involved in the conspiracy along with Arnab Goswami and others.”

Goswami had given Dasgupta money “from time to time”, and that the former CEO, who was in that position from June 2013 to November 2019, used this money to buy expensive items that were seized from his residence in Raigad when he was arrested, the note alleged.

Further investigations were ongoing the police said, as they got custody of Dasgupta, the fifteenth person to be arrested in this case, upto Wednesday.