BENGALURU: Three college students, who allegedly stole a mobile phone and tried to extort a model by blackmailing her that they would post her obscene photos on social networking sites, were arrested by the Parappana Agrahara police.
The accused have been identified as Ashwin Moses, 20, a BBM student, Akshay David, 20, a BE (Civil) student and Kiran, 21, a BCom student. All the three studied in different colleges are were residents of Hosapalya near Electronic City.
According to the police, the accused trio had gone to a hotel, where they stole the mobile phone of the student, on October 4. They managed to steal the phone, as the complainant, also a student, had kept the phone in his backpack, but forgot to zip it. The same day, the student had filed a mobile phone theft case.
A few days after the theft, the accused discarded the memory card from the phone and checked the contents. They found some obscene photos of the complainant’s girlfriend, who is a model.
“The memory card had the video chat that the complainant had with his girlfriend. Taking advantage of those photos and videos, the accused students contacted the model through messages and told her that they had her obscene photos and demanded her to pay them '1 lakh. They blackmailed her that they would post the photos and videos online. Initially, both the model and her boyfriend ignored their threats. As there was no response from the girl, the accused sent her some of her obscene photos. Realising the gravity of the issue, the girl discussed the issue with her boyfriend, who approached the police recently and informed them about the blackmailing,” an official said.
The police tracked the accused and trapped them by offering money to them. “We made the girl to text them that she would pay '50,000 and asked the accused to come to a specific location on Saturday evening. When they came to collect the money, they were nabbed,” the official added.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the accused students were drug addicts and confessed to the offence, stating that they did it to buy drugs. “They were also repeatedly stealing money from their own houses and were even warned by their parents,” the police said.
