Cancer patient whose phone was used to upload nude photos of Mumbai woman arrested

Mumbai city news: 20-year-old from Punjab tells cops he lent his phone to a friend, who used it to extort from a Mumbai woman

The 20-year-old end-stage cancer patient from Jalandhar was arrested in Mumbai earlier this week after a friend allegedly used his phone to threaten and extort money from a woman in the city using social media. The police did not seek custody owing to his condition.

Taking a humanitarian view, the police are not seeking Rahul’s custody for more than a day. (HT)

The woman had approached the Sahar police earlier this year, saying a man had threatened and extorted Rs13,000 from her by posing as a well-known Punjabi singer on Instagram. She said he told her that he had fallen in love with her and the two began to have intimate chats.

A few months later, he told her to send him nude pictures of her and threatened to send their chats to her parents and brother if she didn’t. Scared, Rekha sent him the pictures, which he used to extort Rs 13,000 from her.

When she realised that his demands would never stop, she confided in her mother, who contacted a social worker. The social worker telephoned the man but he abused her and hung up. He knew the woman’s username and password for a popular social media site and soon after used them to upload three pictures of her to her account. The woman and the social worker rushed to the police, who registered a case.

He told the police during interrogation that he remixes songs and that his friend, the alleged con man, told him he would sell his songs to the Punjabi singer to fund his treatment.

This is the excuse he used to take his phone for a few days. The police said he used it not only to extort money from the woman but also transfer Rs 19,000 from the patient’s account to his. He then told his friend that he had misplaced his phone and to register a complaint with the police.

The patient, whose identity the police haven’t revealed, was served a notice a few months ago and told to visit Sahar police station. Though he was undergoing treatment, he managed to travel to Mumbai with his father earlier this week, upon which the police arrested him.

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Cyber crime thrives in Mumbai, credit goes to your police