HYDERABAD: A 30-year-old software professional was confined and assaulted, both physically and sexually, by her former boyfriend at the latter’s flat at Tolichowki for the past five days. Her SOS to a friend on a social networking site on Sunday helped police zero in on the location and finally free her from the clutches of her tormentor on Monday.

Special teams of Hyderabad police set up to check harassment of women in public places, rescued the software engineer, a native of Karnataka, and took her former partner, Syed Imad Hasan, also a software professional and a native of Aligarh, into custody. The survivor and the culprit knew each other from the days they were working at Dell software at Gachibowli . The survivor, in the past, had reportedly worked with the Union ministry of information and technology in Delhi.

While working at Dell, the two became intimate and decided to get married. The survivor refused to marry him later, citing that her family members would not allow an inter-religious marriage, police said.

Since then, Hasan was pestering her to change her mind. In September, she left for Dubai to work there. Hasan continued to harass her. “Hasan used to force the survivor to video-chat with him every day. If she failed to do so, he used to blackmail her saying that he will meet her father directly and explain about their relationship,” deputy superintendent of police Kavita told TOI.

Due to the threats, the survivor used to video-chat with him and Hasan even threatened to expose the videos and photos of her in a compromising position with him. Finally, unable to put up with his threats, the survivor agreed to meet him in person on her visit to Hyderabad for her US visa interview.

“The culprit picked up the victim at the RGI Airport five days ago and took her to his flat and confined her there. He threatened to kill her by showing a knife, a can of petrol and a rope,” the DSP added.

After switching off her cell phone, he forced her to log in to her Gmail and Facebook accounts to monitor what her colleagues, family and friends were thinking about her sudden disappearance.

The culprit sexually assaulted the survivor at his flat and also manhandled her while forcing her to convert to Islam to marry him. He even showed her a photograph of a pistol in his cell phone saying that he had the weapon to kill her.

To save herself, the survivor pretended to be nice to him for the past two days and messaged her former colleague in Dell - Hyderabad about what was happening on Facebook after turning the browser into incognito mode. She also messaged him the address of Hasan’s flat. Finally, when Hasan was out of the house for an hour on Sunday evening, her colleague met her at the flat.

“The survivor’s friend then alerted her brother in Karnataka. Her brother came to Hyderabad on Monday morning. He along with the survivor’s friend approached us. We immediately dispatched a team and rescued her,” Hyderabad additional commissioner of police (crime) Swati Lakra said.When police reached the flat, Hasan claimed he was alone at the dwelling. Police found the survivor confined in one of the bathrooms with a bruised eye and several injuries.

Hasan was arrested and handed over to the Humayun Nagar police.