TRP scam: Ratings agency BARC ex-CEO Partho Dasgupta hospitalised

Mumbai, January 16

Partho Dasgupta, a former CEO of TV ratings agency BARC who was arrested in the Television Rating Points (TRP) rigging case, has been admitted to the ICU of a hospital here after his sugar level shot up, officials said on Saturday.

His daughter took to Twitter to allege that he was tortured in prison, and appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others to `save his life'.

Dasgupta, who's diabetic, was rushed to the state-run JJ Hospital here from the Taloja Central Prison in Navi Mumbai around midnight after his blood sugar levels shot up, a prison official said.

He was admitted to the ICU and was on oxygen support, the official said.

Dasgupta, former CEO of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) was arrested in the alleged TRP rigging scam by the crime branch of the Mumbai Police on December 24 last year.

A Mumbai court had earlier this month rejected his bail plea, stating that he appeared to have played a vital role in the scam to rig TRP as per the police's case.

The Mumbai Police had earlier told the court that Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami had allegedly bribed Dasgupta with "lakhs of rupees" to ramp up the news channel's viewership numbers fraudulently.

On Saturday, Pratyusha Dasgupta, Dasgupta's daughter, demanded that he be shifted to a reputed private hospital.

She tweeted a message titled "A helpless daughter's anguished appeal", tagging PM Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, the PMO as well as Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.

Her mother received a call around 3 am on Saturday informing that her father had been brought to the hospital in an unconscious state around 1 pm on Friday, she said.

For 14 hours nobody from the family was informed about Dasgupta's condition because the authorities allegedly did not have their contact numbers, Pratyusha said.

When they reached the hospital, they found he was unable to speak, she said.

It was apparent that he had been "physically and mentally tortured inside the jail", she alleged. --- PTI