Hyderabad: Stalker arrested for blackmailing women on social media

HYDERABAD: The police in Hyderabad arrested Mohammed Ahmed, 26, a private employee from Adoni in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh for blackmailing women on social media.
Recently, cyber crime police received a complaint from a woman stating that she has been receiving WhatsApp calls from two unknown phone numbers for the past two months. "The accused was asking the complainant for money saying that he obtained her private photographs from Instagram and the same will be deleted only after she pays him Rs 10,000.The accused also put up the complainant's photo as his whatsapp display picture," Cyber crime ACP KVM Prasad said.
During the preliminary probe, police found out that the accused has been befriending women on social media platforms posing as a girl. He used profile picture and name of a woman to befriend victims and then collect their phone numbers and personal photographs. Later he starts blackmailing them for money to delete the photos and also keeps harassing them to have an intimate relationship with him, Inspector B Ramesh said.
Police registered a case under section 354-D (stalking) and 509 (insulting the modesty of a woman) of the IPC and arrested the accused from Adoni. Police seized two cell phones from the possession of the accused. This year, seven cases were registered against the accused at different police stations in the city for harassing women online.