42-year-old held for raping, blackmailing woman

Aurangabad: The Aurangabad city police have arrested a 42-year old man for blackmailing and raping a 36-year old woman. The woman is the wife of a clerk serving at the superintendent of police's office.

The suspect, Milind Mali, is a resident of Raghuveer Nagar on Jalna Road. He was produced before a court here on Sunday and remanded to police custody for two days.

As per the complaint lodged by the woman, Mali was her colleague at a private firm in 2012. One day the suspect called her to his house on the pretext of doing some work and raped her.

The accused even recorded the alleged act and clicked objectionable photographs of the woman. She also accused Mali of using the video and photographs to blackmail and rape her till the end of 2016. He had threatened to share the same with her husband, police said.

The woman said she did not reveal the frequent blackmailing and rapes fearing social stigma and divorce. However, few days ago she mustered courage and narrated her ordeal to her husband. The couple then lodged a complaint against the accused with the Jinsi police.

The Jinsi police late on Saturday registered an offence under sections 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC. In addition to this, sections of the Information and Technology Act have been slapped on the accused.

Police inspector Faheem Hashmi said, "We are trying to recover the suspect's mobile phone and the hard disk, where he saved the woman's video and photographs."