The Alibaug Police on Wednesday morning detained Republic Television editor Arnab Goswami from his Mumbai house in connection with the death of interior designer Anvay Naik and his mother Kumud Naik in 2018. A senior police official has confirmed that Goswami has been arrested. This comes at a times when TRP scam investigation against Goswami is going on in Mumbai.
This case goes back to 2018 when a 53-year-old interior designer Anvay Naik and his mother Kumud Naik died by suicide in Alibaug in May 2018. A suicide note purportedly written by Anvay was found in which he said that Goswami and two others — Feroz Shaikh and Niteish Sarda —had not paid him Rs 5.40 crore which led to his financial constraints.
In 2018, the Alibaug police had filed a case of abetment to suicide but in 2019 the case was closed by Raigad Police.
In May 2020, Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh announced a fresh CID investigation into the case after Adnya Naik, daughter of Avnay Naik, approached him and complained that the Alibaug police had not investigated the “non-payment of dues from Arnab Goswami’s Republic”.
Anvay was the managing director of Concorde Designs Private Limited which rendered some services for Republic. Naik’s mother was also in the Board of Directors of the company. Anvay’s wife Akshata lodged a complained against Arnab Goswami as the suicide note contained his name, along with the others.
The Republic TV at that time quashed the allegations of non-payment and attributed this to “malicious campaign”. It had claimed that all amounts due and payable under the contract were paid by Republic TV to Concorde Designs.