On Wednesday, Prakash Raj, the founder of ‘Today Bihar News’ YouTube channel filed a complaint against the IT team of Bihar’s Forest, Environment and Climate Change Minister Tej Pratap Yadav for threatening him and demanding Rs 2 lakh from him. The complaint has been registered at Pakdidayal Nagar police station in East Champaran, Bihar.
According to the reports, Raj’s YouTube channel was sent a copyright strike notice by another YouTube channel named ‘LR Vlog’ on December 7 for a video in which Minister Tej Pratap Yadav could be seen distributing blankets. Channel LR Vlog presumably belongs to Yadav. Raj said that since Yadav is a public figure, his video was used by the YouTube channel.
Raj also emailed ‘LR Vlog’ and requested to remove the copyright strike as it was affecting the functioning of the channel. In the complaint filed on December 11, Raj stated that thereafter he received a call in which the caller introduced himself as a member of Tej Pratap Yadav’s IT team. He demanded that the details regarding the request to eliminate the strike be sent to him on WhatsApp.
Prakash Raj who is a resident of Rajepur Nawada village, next day called the concerned caller and inquired whether the matter had progressed regarding the copyright strike. The caller who had introduced himself as a member of Tej Pratap Yadav’s IT team then gave his senior Rajeev Ranjan’s contact and asked Raj to talk to him. However, according to the audio calls obtained by OpIndia, Rajeev Ranjan demanded Rs 2 lakh in his YouTube channel account to Raj and promised to remove the strike in return.
Prakash Raj informed to the police, “Initially we felt that we were being cheated in the name of Minister Tej Pratap Yadav! When we talked about complaining about this to the Bihar government, we were threatened there. I am being threatened that a false case will be filed against me. Our family is in a panic right now. We are being mentally harassed by Tej Pratap Yadav’s IT team. The team is also threatening me with severe legal consequences.”
A copy of the complaint has been obtained by OpIndia. Also, screenshots of Prakash Raj’s WhatsApp chats with people claiming to be from Tej Pratap Yadav’s IT team have been obtained. It could be seen in the chats that when Prakash Raj said that his company was not in the position to pay such extensive amount, they called Raj a thief and wrote, “Ek to chori, upar se sinajori.”
The video in connection to which the copyright strike was issued was also published on the YouTube channel of ‘Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)’. Also, in the audio conversations of the phone call, it could be heard that caller who said that he was speaking from Tej Pratap Yadav’s IT Cell had issued the copyright strike. The caller also demanded Raj pay Rs 2 lakh to get off the situation.
The suspect also stayed adamant saying that the money will have to be deposited by Raj in the bank account of the ‘LR Vlog’ company itself. Reportedly, the YouTube channel ‘LR Vlog’, has a description written in English which reads, “Tej Pratap Yadav, Minister for Forest, Environment and Climate Change, Assembly Constituency – Hasanpur (Bihar). Also, it mentions an email address- [email protected] to be used for business inquiries.
Interestingly, Minister Tej Pratap Yadav’s picture has been used as a display picture of the channel which was created on November 6, 2021. At present, it has 65,600 subscribers. There are many videos published on it, which have been produced by Tej Pratap Yadav himself. In several videos, he can also be heard saying, “Namaskar, you are watching LR Vlog and I am Tej Pratap Yadav.”
Prakash Raj in his recent video on the incident has demanded justice and has asked Minister Tej Pratap Yadav to take action against those demanding money from him. At present, no statement has come from Tej Pratap Yadav in this regard, the story will be updated as soon as his statement comes.
