Delhi Police has arrested two men for allegedly extorting over Rs 10 lakh from a woman after threatening to upload her “indecent photographs” on social media.

The accused have been identified as Sourav (27), a resident of Bhalswa Dairy, who works as a cash collection agent and Maneesh (22), a manager of a hotel, said an officer on Thursday.

According to police, the woman filed a complaint on the Cyber Portal regarding extortion by the two men.

“She alleged that around two to three years ago, she had accepted a friend request from an Instagram ID. After gaining her trust the accused allegedly got the victim to share revealing photographs.

Thereafter, he started blackmailing and threatened to post her photographs on social media and extorted Rs 10.5 lakh from her,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rohini), Guriqbal Singh Sidhu.

During the investigation it was learnt that the two men were operating from Badli and Bhalswa area of Delhi.

“On the basis of technical analysis, they were identified as Sourav and Maneesh. A raid was conducted and the accused were apprehended from their residences,” said the DCP.

On sustained questioning, Sourav disclosed that he had made a fake Instagram ID and used to send friend requests to the girls on Instagram.

“After gaining the trust of the girls, he used to get their indecent photographs and then blackmail them. He would threaten to publicise their photos on social media. In the present case also he did the same and extorted Rs 10.5 lakh from the complainant,” said the DCP.

“He received the extorted money in his bank account as well as in his associate’s bank account. On the instance of the accused, one mobile phone and one ATM card were seized from their possession. On analysis of the mobile phone, it came to light that he has hundreds of such photographs in his mobile phone. Apart from such photographs, the IDs of several girls were also found in his mobile phone,” the DCP added.

(The story has been published via a syndicated feed with a modified headline.)