Two men held for extorting 45 people with morphed pics

NEW DELHI: Two men have been arrested for allegedly extorting people by threatening to circulate their morphed obscene pictures on the internet. Police have traced 45 men and women who were targeted by the accused and recovered Rs 12 lakh of the extorted amount.
The accused have been identified as 21-year-old Nasimul Haque and his 20-year-old associate, Shoaib Akhtar, a diploma holder in graphics design.Both accused belong to Uttar Dinajpur district in West Bengal.
According to police, a case was registered on Friday on outraging modesty of a woman, criminal intimidation and other related charges at Jahangirpuri police station based on a complaint file by a woman working with an airline. She alleged that an unknown person had forwarded her morphed and obscene pictures and threatened to circulate those on the internet if she didn’t pay him.
A team led by inspector Surinder Sandhu, station house officer of Jahangirpuri police station, collected technical data and zeroed in on the suspects in Gurgaon. Following a raid, Akhtar and Haque were arrested while their associate Jabaar is absconding. Police also seized four mobile phones and two laptops from the them along with multiple SIM cards.
Deputy commissioner of police (Northwest) Vijayanta Arya said the seized devices were being checked to find out if there were more victims. “The arrested men said they used to create obscene pictures of a target and send these through a chat application to the person with the threat that the photos would be posted on the internet if they were not paid,” she said.
Arya said her team had also managed to trace a victim from Allahabad, who was also an airline employee. She had already filed a police complaint. “Akhtar told police that he had worked at an online loan-providing firm from where he was terminated during the lockdown. He then started using the company’s customer database to target these people by morphing their photos,” deputy commissioner Arya added.