Blackmail with video clip: 3 held

VADODARA: Three persons were arrested by detection of crime branch (DCB) on Sunday for allegedly blackmailing a city-based civil engineer.
The accused Mahesh Borad, Dilip Desai and Shyam Karthiya were threatening Yagnik Pansuriya of making his video clip and his girlfriend viral for the past five days.
On Wednesday, one of the accused began communicating with Pansuriya through a mobile text message application.The accused shared an intimate video clip and few photographs of Pansuriya with his girlfriend. He later threatened to make them viral and asked Pansuriya to pay Rs four lakh by Saturday.
On Saturday, the accused messaged him and demanded Rs 15 lakh. When he admitted that he did not have the money, the accused settled for Rs 35,000. Pansuriya was asked to send the money to Rajkot through angadia.
Pansuriya then approached the city police on Saturday afternoon. As per directions of crime branch, he sent the money to Rajkot through angadia.
DCB then coordinated with the Rajkot crime branch police and kept a watch at the angadia office.
Karthiya, who came to collect the money, was rounded up and he revealed the names of Borad and Desai.
Borad, an electrical engineer, stayed with Pansuriya while pursuing his diploma in electric engineering from a private college in Rajkot in 2013. Borad admitted that he got the video clip and photographs from Pansuriya’s laptop during his stay with him.
“Borad who was working in a private firm was not getting his salary for the last three months. He along with Desai and Karthiya hatched the plan to blackmail him. Borad told us that he had the clip and the photographs in his hard drive,” said DCB police inspector Vikramsinh Rathod.
While Borad is a resident of Dhari town in Amreli district, Desai and Karthiya are both residents of Joshipura taluka of Junagadh district.
Borad, Karthiya and Desai have been booked under charges of extortion and also under section 65 and 67 of Information Technology Act, 2000. While Borad holds a diploma in electrical engineering, both Desai and Karthiya had studied till standard 12. Both Desai and Karthiya are unemployed.