The Dahisar police in Mumbai arrested a 25-year-old man from Karnataka for allegedly blackmailing a college girl in Mumbai and uploading inappropriate and morphed photos of her on social media platforms.
The accused was identified as Shubham Kumar Manojprasad Singh, who hails from Bihar and works as a security guard in Bellary district of Karnataka.
According to investigators, they found evidence indicating the accused created email IDs in the names of around 100 girls and women and 11 Instagram accounts using the names of women.
Police said that they also found 13,500 pictures of women in the accused’s phone gallery and suspect that he has blackmailed over 300 women across the country.
The accused was arrested based on a complaint filed by a college student from Dahisar on January 31.
As per her complaint, the accused man befriended her on Instagram and later asked her to come nude on a video call. When the girl refused, he created fake Instagram accounts in her name and posted inappropriate and morphed content about her and defamed her.
Acting on the complaint, the Dahisar police obtained details of the accused person’s device’s IP address from the service provider and a team of cyber cell officers, including police inspector Ankush Dandge, was sent to Karnataka, where they arrested the accused on June 6.
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The police have also seized the mobile phone used in the crime.
“The accused has been using fake IDs to harass women and girls and blackmail them,” said Assistant Inspector Ankush Dandage of Dahisar police station.
Singh was arrested under sections 78 and 79 of the BNS, along with sections 66(C) and 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The police said that they contacted some of the victims, but they are reluctant to file police complaints as their families are not aware of the harassment they faced.
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However, the police have urged all the victims to come forward and register cases against Singh.
