The accused would morph his victims' pictures to upload them on porn sites and use them to threaten the girls. He was arrested by Vakola police

The Ahmedabad resident arrested by Vakola Police earlier this month for allegedly blackmailing teenage girls by morphing their pictures had done so with more than 200 girls, an investigation into the matter has revealed. The police have found around 1,800 contacts in his phone, some of whom have been identified.

The Std XII dropout, Janam Porwal, with his knowledge in Information Technology, would download his victims' pictures from social media to morph it for porn sites. He would then send these pictures back to the victims and force them to video chat with him, threatening to make their pictures public. Most teenage girls, out of fear, would fall into his trap, and even share their personal mobile numbers with the accused.

Month-long investigation

The Vakola police began an investigation following two complaints filed in January and February. PSI Devidas Arnaye's team gathered digital evidence against the accused but couldn't easily trace his location which was tracked at several locations across the country and even in Canada once. It was the 20-year-old's social media that finally led the cops to him in Khanpur, Ahmedabad on March 10. The accused was soon arrested under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Prevention of Sexual Offences Against Children and the IT Act. Porwal has been remanded to judicial custody.

"The number of such cases has gone up. One must be very careful while chatting with unknown people on social media and mobile apps," a police officer at the Vakola police station said.

• 200: No. of girls Porwal blackmailed
• 1,800: No. of contacts in his phone

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