Cyber criminals extort Rs 40 lakh from 68-yr-old

Our Correspondent

Abohar, April 28

Some unknown people allegedly extorted over Rs 40 lakh from a resident of Sunder Nagari here after morphing an obscene video on the basis of a WhatsApp call that a woman made to the victim in February last year.

The complaint made on May 15 last year was recently investigated by a Deputy Superintendent of Police and a case with the approval of the Fazilka Senior Superintendent of Police has now been registered at the City-1 police station under Sections 384, 419 and 120-B of the IPC against unknown people. Prima facie extortion appeared to be the handiwork of an organised gang of cybercrime experts.

The 68-year-old complainant said in his statement that he received a video call on his WhatsApp number on February 2, 2023, from a woman who introduced herself as Neha Sharma of Jaipur. During the conversation, the woman allegedly started removing her clothes and abruptly closed the call. After three days, a person who identified himself as Gaurav Malhotra of Delhi Crime Branch allegedly contacted the complainant by phone to inform that the obscene video call with Neha had gone viral, and that she had been arrested. The caller allegedly demanded a bribe to dispose of the case. The complainant got scared and made online payments of Rs 23,800.

As per the FIR, he later received calls from other persons who claimed that Neha had died and the case had taken a serious turn. Each caller threatened the complainant and forced him to pay a total of Rs 40 lakh as bribe till April 2023.

As unidentified callers continued to extort money, the victim finally approached the police here in the month of May last year. After deep investigation, a case has now been registered. Assistant Sub-Inspector Kulwinder Singh has been asked to start investigation.

Blackmailed over obscene video call

• The 68-year-old complainant said that he received a video call on his WhatsApp number on February 2, 2023, from a woman. During the conversation, she allegedly started removing her clothes and abruptly cut the call
• After three days, a person who identified himself as Delhi Crime Branch official called him to inform that the obscene video call had gone viral, and that she had been arrested. He exhorted Rs 23,800 from the complainant
• Later, he received calls from people who claimed that the girl had died and the case had taken a serious turn. Each caller threatened the complainant and forced him to pay a total of Rs 40 lakh as bribe till April, 2023

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