Noida: In a shocking revelation, the Uttar Pradesh Police on Friday claimed that the accusations made by journalist Atul Agrawal on being robbed, earlier this week, at gunpoint in the Noida Extension area of Gautam Budha Nagar are 'fake'.
The twist in the case comes days after a journalist of a Hindi news channel claimed that he was robbed and assaulted in Noida Extension on Saturday night, while returning home.
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However, after investigation, the Police have claimed that journalist Atul Agarwal has made false allegations of loot as there were many contradictions in his statement.
Sharing an official statement about the incident, Noida Police said that Hindi Khabar chief and senior journalist Atul Agarwal had fabricated the story of being robbed and assaulted for 'family reasons.'
Soon after Agarwal took to his social media profile and alleged that he was robbed on Saturday night, Noida Police started investigating the issue. In the probe, Police found several contradictions in the journalist's statement and came to a conclusion that the story narrated by him was 'fake' and that he was not mugged by assaulters as he had alleged.
Interestingly, the Police investigation also revealed that Agarwal had gone for dinner at the house of a female friend on June 19 at around 7 pm. Agarwal's colleague informed Police that he had left her house at around 10:40 pm after his wife called.
However, as per police reports at around 1:20 am Agarwal called his friend and informed him that he is roaming on streets and looking for an OYO room to spend the night.
According to electronic evidence gathered by the Noida police, Agarwal paid up for an OYO room through his bank account and even CCTV footage confirms his presence in the hotel.
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"Taking all these pieces of evidence into consideration, it is proved that there has been no robbery incident with Atul Agarwal and this fake case was spread on social media by him due to his personal family reasons," the Noida police concluded.
Agrawal is editor-in-chief of the Hindi Khabar news channel and posted his alleged robbery incident on his Facebook account.