MBA student blackmails friend’s fiancee, threatens to post her private pictures online

On Wednesday, Rabodi police arrested a 25-year-old MBA student from Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) for blackmailing his childhood friend’s fiancee and demanding Rs 5 lakh.

The accused, identified as Vikas Agarwal, had access to his friend’s mobile phone. While on a trip to Thailand, Agarwal acquired private pictures of his friend’s fiancee from the phone.

Upon returning to the city, Agarwal blackmailed the girl with the pictures and demanded Rs 5 lakh from her. He threatened to post her pictures online if she failed to comply with his demand.

The victim, a CA with a bank, reported the blackmail to the police. Initially she suspected that the pictures were acquired from a local shop where she had given her mobile phone for repairs. But, upon interrogating the employees, police found that they weren’t involved.

With nothing left to investigate, police decided to lay a trap for the blackmailer and catch him red-handed. After a failed first attempt, they asked the girl to meet the accused in BKC where he walked into the police’s trap and was arrested.

Deputy commissioner of police Abhishek Trimukhi while speaking to TOI said, “When she reached Kurla, she informed him that she was carrying only Rs 2.1 lakh, which angered him, and he did not turn up. The next day, we sent her to BKC with Rs 3 lakh, and he walked into our trap.”

After the arrest another IPS officer was quoted saying, “Agrawal confessed to the crime, said he was a childhood friend of the victim’s fiance, and that he had acquired her photographs from his friend’s mobile phone when they had gone on a trip to Thailand. He knew his friend’s mobile password and had transferred the pictures to his phone. He said he needed the money to pay his debts of Rs 10-15 lakh.”