NEW DELHI -- The Indian news website whose exposure of bribery and influence-peddling rocked the government said on Wednesday that it had also filmed army officers demanding sex with prostitutes from journalists posing as arms dealers.
It was the latest twist to a scandal over secretly shot videotapes which, when it first emerged in March, forced the defense minister and two ruling coalition party chiefs to resign.
It also provoked an immediate furor in parliament, where opposition lawmakers chanted slogans and waved copies of The Indian Express newspaper -- which broke the sex story on Wednesday morning -- forcing an adjournment until the afternoon.
In March the website released several hours of video which showed a string of politicians, military officials and bureaucrats apparently taking money to swing what was actually a fictional deal for thermal imaging equipment.
Many hours of footage were never released, but copies of everything the website's journalists filmed with their hidden camera were handed over to a commission of enquiry and the army.
Tehelka Editor-in-Chief Tarun Tejpal told Reuters that the unscreened footage did indeed show military brass asking for sexual favors and even one officer having sex with a prostitute.
He said his investigative journalists had to go along with their demands to avoid blowing their cover at the early stage of a sting operation that took several months to put together.
"These guys were not very comfortable having to do it, but then there's the question of the story," he said.
"They just show that these guys, they're demanding having sex, that's basically it. I think there are three army officers.
"The idea was to keep the story going. Obviously they were making the kind of demands they obviously make over these arms dealings all the time, routine demands -- which is the booze, money, women -- the totally routine things they do."
The maverick news website -- whose Hindi name means "sensation" -- carried out a sting on cricket match-fixing last year that shook India's favorite game to its foundations.
But its major scoop came with the arms scandal, which sucked Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's coalition government into its biggest crisis since it took power 22 months ago.
Tejpal said Tehelka had decided against releasing the footage, which showed the sex demands and act, but never wanted to suppress it either.
"It is a corruption and governance story. There is no way we were going to derail the focus," he said.
"As far as we were concerned we put out enough to state our story. Had those things been put out even as clips then people would have said these guys are getting sensational ... people would have said these guys are dabbling in sex and sleaze."
The Indian Express said it had obtained copies of transcripts from the tapes.
It said that in one scene, shot at a five-star hotel in New Delhi, one of the Tehelka journalists leaves in search of condoms for an army officer.
"Later in this meeting, the Tehelka representative walks out of the room leaving the camera running. One of the officers walks out of the frame with one of the prostitutes, while the second is recorded having sex with the second prostitute," it said.
