Mangalore: Police arrest 8 for kidnap, blackmail of college students

Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje

Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (NM)

Mangalore, Dec 21: Mangalore city police on Saturday December 21 arrested eight persons in connection to the kidnapping and blackmail of two students of a private college at Deralakatte. The gang had forced the boy and the girl to engage in a sexual act and videographed them for blackmail.

Addressing a press meet here on Saturday at his office, police commissioner R Hitendra said that the eight were arrested at Katipalla circle in a house. They were produced in court on Saturday evening and remanded in police custody for three days.

Though the commissioner did not disclose the names of the accused, informed police sources told daijiworld that the eight are Shamsuddin (23) of Suratkal, Shameer (21) of Deralakatte, Iqbal (23) of Deralakatte, Rauf (22) of Deralakatte, Nawaz (28) of Mudipu, Nisar (18) of Manjanady, Harshad (28) of Deralakatte, and Sharfan Hussain (21) of Deralakatte. Sources said that three of them are rowdy-sheeters and have cases against them in Mulky police station.

Explaining the chain of events, Hitendra said that on December 18 at around 11 pm, the two students, male and female, were sitting in their car outside Meeting Point bar and restaurant. The gang came to their car, blindfolded them and one of the eight drove the car to a house in an isolated spot. The students were forced to perform sex, and when they refused, the gang brandished weapons and threatened to kill them and even threatened to rape the girl. Frightened, the students did as they were told, and their obscene shots were captured in the couple's mobile phones by the gang.

The gang then demanded Rs 25 lac from them, and threatened to upload the videos on the internet, the social media, and give copies to their parents and to their college principal if they were not paid the amount. Under pressure, the students agreed to pay them Rs 3 lac, for which the gang agreed.

The students were then taken to another isolated house. On December 20, a few of the 8 accused accompanied the girl to Thokkottu, while the boy remained hostage with the rest. While leaving the girl to bring the money, they warned her not to reveal the incident to anyone and not to approach the police, if she wanted to see her male friend alive. The girl, however, took courage and with the help of an advocate lodged a complaint with Konaje police.

The police swung into action and within a day caught hold of the accused. The police also seized a car, mobile phones, the video clip and weapons from the accused.

Konaje police booked the accused under sections 363, 384, 395, 354, 354 (c), 506, 364 (a), and 307 of IPC.

DCP (law and order) Dr K V Jagadish who is investigating the case and DCP (crime) Dharmaiah were present. Further investigations are on.

ACP south Pavan Nejjoor, inspector Dharmendra, PSI Sudhakar, PSI Ramesh Hanapur, PSI Sathish, PSI, Shyamsunder, SI Sundar Acharya, and other police personnel were part of the operation.