PUNE: Three youths induced a 13-year-old school student to smoke a cigarette, then filmed him in the act and blackmailed him, before finally compelling him to steal cash and
gold ornaments totally worth Rs6.55 lakh from his house.
The trio had threatened that thet would make the video public via a social networking site and show it to his parents if he refused to meet their demand.
The incident came to light on Friday when the boy's parents found the cash and ornaments missing from a cupboard. The parents confronted the boy, who confessed to stealing the cash and ornaments over a period of time to meet the demand of the blackmailers.
The blackmai is said to have started sometime back in the month of October
The Bibvewadi police on Friday arrested one of the blackmailers — an 18-year-old college student, Aditya Madhukar Vandare. Two minor boys were also booked on charges of
extortion among other charges of the Indian Penal Code and
Juvenile Justice Act after the boy's father registered an FIR.
The blackmailed boy is a student of Standard VIII, while Vandare is a student of Standard XII in a city-based college.
Bibvewadi police inspector
Santosh Barge said, "The boy and the suspects are friends. The suspects taught the boy to how smoke and then filmed the act."
"They later started blackmailing him and threatened that they would make the video viral on a social networking site as well as show it to his parents if he did not pay them," he added
He said, "The terrified boy feared that the video would be made viral. So, he decided to steal cash and ornaments from his house and gave it to the suspects over a period of time."
Vandare's minor friends will be detained at the earliest, Barge added.
Representative Image
