A 21-year-old youth has landed into the custody of the cybercrime unit attached to the Mira Bhayandar-Vasai Virar (MBVV) on alleged charges of posing as a female on a well-known social networking application to lure a minor school girl into sending her obscene pictures and videos.
According to the police, the accused who is said to be a college drop-out works as a delivery boy with a merchandise aggregator in Kashimira. The action followed in response to a complaint registered by the girl’s father on 27, August, that his minor school-going daughter was being threatened and blackmailed by the accused.
Sensing the seriousness of the situation, a team led by Police Inspector-Sujitkumar Gunjkar and PSI Prasad Shenolkar under the guidance of DCP-Vijaykant Sagar apprehended the accused from Mira Road on the virtue of technical surveillance within 48 hours and booked under the relevant sections of the IPC, Information Technology Act and the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.
The accused created fake accounts and represented himself as a girl to lure minors into sending him their obscene videos and photos- which were later used as a tool for blackmail into sending more such content.
The police also recovered his smartphone containing the objectionable contents which prove his misdemeanour. The cybercrime unit has handed over the accused and the case to the Kashimira police for further investigations.
“He seems to have multiple IDs indicating his involvement in targeting more such girls. We are examining all the accounts.” said senior police inspector Sanjay Hazare of the Kashimira police station.
Meanwhile, the accused has been remanded to seven days of police custody by the District Sessions Court, Thane. The incident has yet again posed a serious question mark on the age-verification process needed to sign-up on social networking applications.
(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
