Four persons who were arrested in Anand for allegedly trying to extort Rs 5 lakh from a person they met on a gay dating app were remanded to one-day custody on Tuesday. A fifth accused is yet to be apprehended, police said.
According to a complaint filed at Anand town police station on Monday, the accused got in touch with the complainant on a gay dating app while he was visiting Anand on July 23. The accused and the complainant exchanged phone numbers and began chatting.
The accused later called the complainant to meet in a hotel room in Anand, where the accused filmed obscene videos without his consent and blackmailed the complainant by threatening to share the videos on the internet, police said.
Later the other accused joined the first accused and together they took away cash of Rs 4,500 from the accused and also a gold chain valued at Rs 40,000, the complainant told police. The accused also demanded Rs 5 lakh from the complainant, the FIR states.
The arrested accused are Meru Rabari, Tanveer Juneja, and Shakti Bajipura from Surendranagar and Ashif Liyaqat from Botad. A fifth accused Kuldeep Tharola from Surendranagar is yet to be apprehended, police said.
All accused have been booked under Indian Penal Code sections 387 for putting a person in fear of death for extortion, 504 for intentional insult to provoke breach of peace, 506 (2) for criminal intimidation, 120B for criminal conspiracy and 323 for voluntarily causing hurt. According to the comp- laint, the accused have trapped several unsuspecting LGBTQ individuals in different cities in a similar manner earlier also using the popular gay dating app.