The infamous sex scandal of Madhya Pradesh is spiralling out control for the state government with top politicians, bureaucrats and journalists now being named behind the racket. Police have recovered 1,000 clips of sex chats and explicit videos from the accused running the extortion racket by blackmailing their victims using the videos of their sexual encounters.

Many believe that the current sex scandal is bigger than the Vyapam Scam that rocked the government of Shivraj Singh Chouhan many years ago. The scandal came to light last week when the Madhya Pradesh Police arrested two women and a driver on the complaint of an engineer Harbhajan Singh posted in Indore. According to the complaint, a woman called Monica Yadav had made a video of having sex with her and tried to extort Rs 3 crore to keep her mouth shut.

She was arrested while taking the first installment of Rs 50 lakh from Singh. This, according to news agency PTI, led to the unearthing of the biggest honey-trap and blackmailing racket that is now threatening to reach the doorstep of many top bureaucrats and politicians.

Aside from Monica, the other four arrested are Aarti Dayal, Shweta Swapnil Jain, Shweta Vijay Jain, Barkha Soni and a driver, Omprakash.

The racket was apparently to procure lucrative government contracts, running into several hundred crores, from the targeted VIPs. Most of the contracts were given to reputed companies by the kingpin Shweta Jain and her aide Aarti Dayal, now arrested, on a commission basis. They also had 40 college girls to honey trap high-ranking government officers and politicians.

Shweta Jain has confessed to forcing at least two dozen college going girls, from lower-middle-class families, to seduce the high and mighty of the MP government with the promise of jobs.

Among those having fallen victim to their extortion racket are a dozen top bureaucrats and eight former ministers of Madhya Pradesh. They are being investigated by a Special Investigation Team.

The role of journalists too has come under the scanner in the sex scandal. India Today quoted a local journalist as saying, “Actually it is a small bunch of so-called journalists, who move in the corridors of power with the sole purpose of extorting money from bureaucrats or politicians involved in corrupt practices. However, as of now, the SIT has not named anyone (journalist). I can only say that Shweta and Aarti, used a few journalists in negotiating deals with the bureaucrats or ministers.”

Both the ruling Congress and the BJP have accused each other of being involved in the sex racket.