Man held for blackmailing minor with morphed photo

Cops say he got her number, photo from a search for her name on a caller-ID app

Mumbai: A 27-year-old man from Rajasthan was arrested for allegedly threatening to circulate morphed images of a 16-year-old girl after she declined to befriend him on WhatsApp. According to the police, the girl is Class 11 student from Shivaji Park.

An officer from Shivaji Park police station, who did not wish to be named, said, “On April 13, the girl received a message on Whatsapp from an unknown number, to which she replied, asking who it was that had messaged her. The accused then asked her to be his friend, to which she said no.”

Then on April 14, the accused sent the girl a morphed image of her and asked her to call him on his second number. The officer added, “The accused told her to call as soon as she could, and said that if she failed to do so, he would circulate her morphed image on social networking sites.” Afraid of the consequences, the girl called him. However, she also reported the matter to the Shivaji Park police, who registered a case on April 15.

Senior police inspector Gangadhar Sonawane from Shivaji Park police station said, “We got his location through his mobile phone, which revealed that he was in Udaipur. A team comprising police sub-inspector Pankaj Bhopale, and constables Shyam Waghmare and Amit Pawar was sent to Rajasthan, from where they arrested the accused.”

The police said the man got the girl’s details – including the photo that he later morphed – from a random search for her name on the app Truecaller, a collaborative caller-ID network. “He would search for names randomly on Truecaller. When he saw he picture, he saved her number and messaged her on Whatsapp. He even got her picture from the app,” said an officer.