Paid Waze Rs 25 lakh after FIR in TRP case: BARC official

Suspended Mumbai Police assistant inspector Sachin Waze was paid Rs 25 lakh by the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), India, final yr, quickly after an FIR was filed in a case of alleged rigging of tv viewership information, in accordance with a letter by a senior BARC official to the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The letter, despatched in March this yr, claims that the cash was paid to cease Waze from allegedly harassing BARC workers.
Calling it a false allegation, Waze’s lawyer Sudeep Pasbola denied that he had demanded cash from BARC officers.
Waze was suspended for his alleged position within the bomb scare outdoors industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s home in South Mumbai, and was later arrested by NIA within the case. He is in judicial custody at current.
A BARC spokesperson and a consultant for Puneet Goenka, chairman of BARC India’s board, didn’t need to touch upon the matter.
In his letter to ED on March 24, BARC India’s head of vigilance, Lt Col Dharamveer Mahecha, wrote that the company was “under extreme pressure and stress of constant demands and threats made” made to BARC. He wrote that they had been “hoping that after paying the money, Rs 25 lakh, we would not be harassed further. Fearing for our own safety and well being as well as fear of falsely getting implicated and arrested we were virtually compelled to arrange for the aforesaid money.”
In the four-page letter — The Indian Express has seen a replica of it — Mahecha informed ED that in October 2020 Hansa Research, which measured tv score factors (TRP) on behalf of BARC, had filed an FIR stating that a few of its employees members had paid cash to panel households that very same month, probably influencing viewers behaviour. The letter talked about that Crime Investigation Unit of Mumbai Police subsequently known as BARC officers and sought additional info, which was supplied.
But even after that, Mahecha wrote, he and one other BARC colleague had been “called on a day to day basis by CIU officials to their office without any proper reasons or grounds” a number of instances between October 7 and October 25 final yr.

Mahecha wrote that when he requested Waze about “being harassed without any reason”, the then API mentioned that “our company is not taking care of them and asked us to look into the matter, clearly indicating expectation of monetary consideration in lieu of escaping from continuous harassment”.

He maintained that Waze demanded Rs 25 lakh on October 27.
After the cash was organized, it was “handed over” to a different particular person “as instructed by Mr Sachin Waze” on November1 at Airoli station in Navi Mumbai, the letter acknowledged.