Pati, patni aur woh: Chitra Tripathi’s journalist husband claimed he was robbed but the truth is something else

Atul Agarwal, the editor-in-chief of Hindi Khabar and husband of TV news anchor Chitra Tripathi has found himself in hot soup after allegedly lying about a robbery. Last week, the journalist had posted a long thread on Facebook claiming that he was robbed of Rs 5,000 by armed assailants near Noida Extension. Meanwhile, Chitra Tripathi’s journalist husband has locked his Facebook profile now.

According to an Indian Express report, the journalist, a Noida resident, had claimed he was in his Safari car when he was stopped by five men on motorcycles near a police booth in Bisrakh, Noida Extension area of Gautam Buddha Nagar. He claimed that when he lowered his window, one of the accused pulled out a gun and asked him to hand over valuables. Despite being allegedly robbed, Agarwal did not file a complaint or an FIR.

However, the Noida Police taking suo moto cognisance of the issue based on the social media post started its probe. And soon after, Noida Police burst Atul Agarwal’s bubble of lies by stating that he had gone to an OYO and a robbery could not have possibly occurred.

“A team of five COG officers probed the case. We investigated all electronic and CCTV evidence pertaining to the alleged incident. The scribe had alleged the robbery had taken place around 1 am near Hindon Pul after which he went home.” said Noida Police whilst adding, “It was found through CCTV footage that he had reached an Oyo hotel room in Sector 121 after 1 am where he spent the night. The distance between the hotel room and his house indicate that it was not possible that the incident occurred.”

According to electronic evidence gathered by Noida Police, Agarwal paid up for an OYO room through his bank account and the CCTV footage further confirms his presence in the hotel.

“Taking all these pieces of evidence into consideration, it is proved that there has been no robbery incident with Atul Agarwal and this fake case was spread on social media by him due to his personal family reasons,” Noida Police added in its statement.

Interestingly, the Police investigation also revealed that Agarwal had gone for dinner at the house of a female friend on June 19 at around 7 pm. Agarwal’s colleague informed Police that he had left her house at around 10:40 pm after his wife Chitra called.

The fact that the journalist lied and paraded his lie unashamedly on social media platforms should be enough for the police to take action against him, and if not, send him behind the bars for a couple of days at least, as a lesson that when in trouble and trying to hide some late-night escapades, one need not manufacture a robbery story.