20-year-old held from Gujarat for stalking, blackmailing 800 minors and promoting child pornography

Mumbai Police’s cyber unit arrested a 20-year-old man from Mahua in Bhavnagar district of Gujarat on Monday for allegedly stalking, blackmailing and promoting child

Mumbai Police’s cyber unit arrested a 20-year-old man from Mahua in Bhavnagar district of Gujarat on Monday for allegedly stalking, blackmailing and promoting child pornography. The cyber police found nude photographs of more than 800 girls, between 10 and 15 years from the mobile phone of the accused, Alfaz Jamani, which he managed to get from the victims after blackmailing them.

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According to cyber police officers, Jamani is a Class 12 dropout. He used to work at an onion dehydration plant.

Dr Rashmi Karandikar, deputy commissioner of police (cyber), said, “On September 4, we received complaints from seven parents whose children are between 10 and 15 years old. The parents alleged that an unidentified person uploaded morphed and nude images of their children on social media. The police filed a first information report (FIR) and began investigations.”

Based on technical evidence, one police team went to Gujarat on September 6 and arrested him. According to the police, the accused revealed that he used to first send friend requests to minors and then started chatting with them after they accepted the request. He later would download their photos from their social media account, morph it and upload them on his other social media profile.

The accused would then sent the girls the screenshots of their morphed pictures and ask for their username and password.

“Once the girl shared the login credentials, he would change the password, the password recovery email id and mobile number, to ensure that the girl cannot recover the password. He would then again blackmail them to send their nude photographs and videos,” said a police officer from the cyber unit.

Jamani would also chat with other female friends of the girls through their accounts and share the morphed images of the victims with their friends, said the police.

“Jamani would tell the friends of the victims that the latter achieved the body shape because of a medicine, and would then ask them to share their nude photos to “guide” them on the amount of medicine they need to consume to get the desirable shape,” said the police officer.

Karandikar said Jamani is booked under section 354D (stalking) of the Indian Penal Code as well as sections 12 (punishment for sexual harassment) and 13 (use of child for pornographic purposes) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act.

“We have recovered four mobile phones from his house which he used for the crime. Some of the phones belong to his parents and elder brother. From one of those phones, we have recovered more than 800 nude images of minor girls and the accused said he had blackmailed the girls to get these pictures. We have found his 17 fake social media profiles which he used it to befriend minors. We are investigating further,” Karandikar said.

Last year, Jamani was arrested by Pune Police for the same offences but was released on bail.

A metropolitan magistrate court remanded him in police custody for six days.

Advisory from Mumbai Police

• Don’t share social media password with anyone
• Keep your social media account private
• Secure your account with two-step verification or two-factor authentication
• Don’t accept unknown friend request
• Don’t share any personal or family or financial information on social media or post nude or semi-nude photographs
• Parents should monitor their children’s social media accounts.