Apaedophile, who used to blackmail minor girls by taking their profile pictures from social media sites and apps and morphing their faces on to objectionable pictures before sending them to the victims with abusive messages through WhatsApp and Facebook, was arrested by Delhi Police on Saturday.
According to a senior police official, the accused identified as Rajesh Gambhir (29) has stalked and blackmailed more than 50 girls in the age group of 9-16 years. The accused stays in Kishan Ganj.
Gambhir was found to be running a mobile phone shop from his residence. Three mobiles phones and the SIM card, which were used in the commission of offence in this case, was recovered at his instance.
Police said that on Thursday, a woman residing in Ashok Vihar area had lodged a complaint that some unknown person had sent morphed obscene pictures to her daughter on her mobile phone through WhatsApp. “She had also provided the morphed objectionable pictures with the face of her daughter, who is studying in class 9 in a reputed Delhi school. On the basis of her complaint, an FIR was registered, a case vide under Sections 354A/354D/506/509 IPC read with 67/67A IT Act was registered at Ashok Vihar Police Station and the matter was taken up for investigation,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police, North-West district, Vijay Singh.
During investigation, the technical surveillance of the suspect’s mobile phone was conducted and it revealed that the accused had procured the SIM number on the basis of a fake identity. After sustained efforts the police team succeeded in tracing the accused and his address. The team then raided his house and nabbed him, said the official.
During the analysis of the data recovered from his mobile phones, the morphed pictures of the complainant’s daughter as well as morphed pictures of other girls were found.
The official further said, on interrogation, the accused disclosed that he used to surf the profile pictures on Facebook by putting any female name randomly and save those profile pictures. later, he used to add the faces of such girls on objectionable obscene female images through cut and paste application from his mobile phone. Further he used to chat with them and threatened them of dire consequences if they did not meet his demands.
During the scrutiny of his phone data, morphed objectionable pictures of many girls were found in the mobile and it was revealed further that he had blocked approximately 40 mobile numbers which seem to be the numbers of the parents of the victims.
Besides, his mobile phone has been found containing the details of more than 50 girls. It has also been revealed that he had been selling SIM cards of different companies from his shop and he used the identity documents of his customers for procuring SIM cards numbers for using the same in the commission of such offences.
Gambhir has studied up to 10th standard from an open school. He is a bachelor and has been running a mobile phone shop in the name of Gambhir Communications at his residence.
“The accused got into this bad habit as he was frustrated for not getting married so far as all of his friends were already married and settled. Further investigation is in progress,” said the police official.