Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai

Mumbai, Oct 17: Umesh Mishra from Virar was arrested by the Mumbai police in the TRP on Friday, October 16 is the sixth arrest made. Mishra is a resident of suburban Andheri, the crime branch nabbed him from the Virar area.

An official stated that Mishra allegedly bribed the people at whose house the metre collecting viewership was installed to watch a particular channel.

The arrests were made after Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) suspended its weekly ratings for the next six months for all channels. The Mumbai crime branch had arrested Vinay Tripathi from Hansa Research Group from Uttar Pradesh's Mirzapur, the fifth person to be arrested in the case. The other four arrested are Vishal Bhandari, former employee of Hansa; Bompalli Rao alias Sanjiv Rao; Shirish Shetty, owner of Fakt Maratha; and Narayan Sharma of Box Cinema.

On October 8, Mumbai top cop Param Bir Singh said that it had busted a major TRP scam to boost advertising revenues by Republic TV and two other Marathi channels. Earlier BARC had given contract to a company Hansa Research to install 1800 barometers in Mumbai to monitor TRPs.