Tirupur man held for trying to blackmail woman over morphed photos

TIRUPUR: A 21-year-old man was arrested in Tirupur on Wednesday for blackmailing a female garment unit worker by threatening to morph her images and share obscene versions of them on social media sites. The police had roped in a government bus conductor to help lure the accused into their trap and arrest him.

According to the police, the 24-year-old woman, who hails from Karur, was employed in a garment unit in Perumanallur near Tirupur city. The woman recently received a telephone call from an unidentified man who claimed to have her photos. Shocked, she asked the man to delete the photos. However, the man refused and demanded Rs 20,000 from her else he would digitally morph the photos to create obscene images and post them on social media sites.

Despite her shock and fear, the woman approached the police personnel at Perumanallur police station and a complaint was registered on December 7. 

The police laid a trap to catch the culprit. They asked the woman to continue communicating with the man. Eventually, the man allegedly asked the woman to hand over the money in a parcel to a conductor of a government bus moving towards Karur district.

When the bus reached a specific spot, the culprit approached the conductor to take the money, and the police personnel, travelling in the bus caught him in the act. The man was taken to a police station for interrogation.

Police said the accused was identified as Nagaraj (21), a resident of Chinna Dharapuram in Karur, who also happened to be a relative of the young woman. According to police, he confessed to attempting to extort money and using a mobile app to make the call. He was arrested and remanded to the Tirupur district jail on Thursday afternoon.