Friday, December 23 2005 09:16 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The men who carried out the sting operations against the MPs in the cash-for-query scam found their prey through a number of middlemen, the Lok Sabha inquiry committee revealed yesterday (Dec 22, 2005).

It said that Aniruddha Bahal of Cobrapost.com, which conducted the sting operation, stated that the middlemen were Harish Badola, Chandrabhan Gupta, M K Tripathi, Mohan, Dinesh Chandra, Ravinder Kumar, Vijay, Sudip Mishra and Ajay Singh.

Bahal denied that there was any entrapment of members as alleged. "I strongly defend that there was no entrapment," he said.

"In this case, each of the MPs knew that we were coming and for what we were coming because the middlemen had already talked to them.

"We did not approach any MP in a fishing expedition. The middleman goes to them and tells them. Appointment is fixed and we land up," the report quoted Bahal as saying.