AP man arrested for stalking, blackmailing and threatening minor on social media

Hyderabad: The Rachakonda police on Monday arrested an engineer from Andhra Pradesh for allegedly cyber-stalking, blackmailing and threatening a minor girl. Police said the accused, Gowreneni Manoj, hacked the victim's Instagram ID and threatened her that if she failed to do nude video calls, he would morph her pictures and circulate them on social media.

Manoj reportedly told the police that he was addicted to watching porn videos. He created a fake ID with a woman's name and used it to strike up a friendship with the victim. He then sent her a phishing link which she opened. This captured her Instagram password and gave Manoj access to her account, Rachakonda police commissioner D.S. Chauhan said.

Police said he used this to download her pictures, add vulgar comments, including that she was a 'call girl,' and post them back on her Instagram account. When she contacted him through one of her friends' profiles, Manoj asked her to make nude video calls. She then went to the police.