A Mumbai sessions court has sentenced the editor of an unregistered tabloid to a total of 22 years of rigorous imprisonment for sexually exploiting four women who worked as reporters with him in February last year.

Kalicharan Patiram Srivastav (68), editor of Crime Samachar, Vikroli Times, and Ek Najar Railway Crime Par, was on February 27 sentenced to 22 years of rigorous imprisonment, a year's simple imprisonment and Rs 10,000 fine for allegedly sexually exploiting the women.

But Srivastav will spend only seven years in prison as the sentences will run concurrently, Mumbai Police sources said.

Srivastav, who stays in Ambedkar Nagar slums in northern suburb, Vikroli, used to recruit young women as reporters for the three tabloids.

He would collect their passport size photographs on the pretext of issuing identity cards, and later threaten to publish the pictures as those of call girls, sources added.

The 68-year-old Srivastav even forced these women to accompany him to various towns in central India, where he continued to allegedly sexually exploit them.

DCP (Crime) Dhananjay Kamalakar, who probed the case, said that once the lady reporters succumbed to his lust, Srivastav would take their pictures in nude and further exploit them.

The Vikroli police seized several such pictures following raids on Srivastav's house, Kamalakar added.