Bhubaneswar: Police have apprehended ive teenagers, four of them juveniles, in Odisha capital for allegedly blackmailing people after befriending them on a social networking app for gay, bisexual and transgenders, and then extorting money from them by recording their objectionable videos.
The arrests were made on the basis of a complaint by a youth from Khurda. All the five youths are Plus II students of different colleges in the city.
According to sources, the accused picked targets by tracking them through fake accounts on Grindr. They used to ask them to come to a location at Garage Chhak and then take them to a house at Samantarapur, where obscene videos of the victims were shot. Following this, they used to ask them to transfer money to their account and even take to ATMs by threatening to make the video viral.
Sources further said that one of the accused met a fashion designer near Mausi Maa Chhak on October 5 and took him to a nearby house, where his associates were already present. They then assaulted the youth, undressed him and clicked his nude photographs. They forced him to transfer Rs 56,000 from his UPI number to their account.
They trapped a medical student on October 9 and robbed him of about Rs 1.15 lakh. The group allegedly extorted lakhs of rupees from around 5 persons in the last seven days, the sources added.
“The accused were produced before the juvenile justice board. They do not have a criminal past,” assistant commissioner of police (zone-II) Girija Shankar Chakrabarty said.
Police investigation is underway to ascertain involvement of more people in the racket.
