Police arrest man who first befriended, then extorted girls on social media

“The suspect, Mohammad Aamir, landed in the police net after a 13-year-old girl told her father about him. The man turned to the police for help,” said Rajiv Ranjan, DCP (outer-north).

A 21-year-old man projected himself as a businessman on social media, befriended young girls, persuaded them to send their private images, and then blackmailed them into paying money, Delhi Police said after arresting him on Wednesday.

Police said Aamir was a serial offender, who confessed to targeting several other young girls and women. (Getty Images. Representational purpose)

“The suspect, Mohammad Aamir, landed in the police net after a 13-year-old girl told her father about him. The man turned to the police for help,” said Rajiv Ranjan, DCP (outer-north).

Police said Aamir was a serial offender, who confessed to targeting several other young girls and women. It is learnt that he deleted all the chats with his victims, including the one with the 13-year-old girl, from his mobile phone. Police have sent his phone for forensic examination to retrieve the lost chats.

Aamir belongs to Bijnaur in Uttar Pradesh and is a barber by profession. He operated an Instagram account in which he posed as a young rich man. “He would befriend girls on social media, fake a relationship with them, and then trick them into sending him their images,” said the DCP.

As soon as he received these private images, Aamir would allegedly threaten to circulate them on social media. “He gave his victims an option of arranging extortion money for him if they did not want their images to go viral on social media,” said the officer.

While his victims usually did not report the matter to the police or their parents, a 13-year-old girl living in outer Delhi’s Alipur could neither take the blackmailing any more nor arrange the money. She finally decided to confide in her father, said police.

Her father approached the police earlier this month, following which a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was registered at Alipur police station. “We sought technical help to identify the suspect and nabbed him. We have seized the phone which he was using for the crime,” the DCP said.