Man morphs pictures off govt websites, blackmails
One of his victims was a woman constable working for the Hyderabad police commissionerate.
Hyderabad: A cyber pervert who approached victims through social media and threatened to show nude videos of them was arrested by Hyderabad cyber crime police. He reportedly collected victims’ data through government websites. One of his victims was a woman constable working for the Hyderabad police commissionerate.
K Bhaskar, 35, is from Nyalapogula village in Lingalaghanpur mandal in Warangal district. Police said he used to be a farmer cum middleman operating in various government offices in erstwhile Warangal district.
Mr N. Mohan Rao, who heads the social media hacking unit of the Hyderabad cyber crime department, said that Bhaskar would collect details of his victims from various government websites.
“Using the loophole in the website design, the accused collected thousands of details like pictures, phone number, address and others. He used to randomly type the name on websites and get the details. Now the website design has been changed giving more importance to privacy,” Mr Rao said.
After collecting the details, Bhaskar would approach his victim through some social media platform. He would make a video call to them during which he would flash the victims. Later he would insist his victims pose nude.
Two cases have already been registered against him by the Hyderabad cyber crime police, in 2018 and 2019. One of his victims was a woman constable working for the Hyderabad police commissionerate. When she was jobless she had applied for a beneficiary scheme and through this Bhaskar obtained her details.
Investigators found that the subscriber identification module (SIM) Bhaskar was using was registered in the name of a resident of Nizamabad district. However, during their call data record analysis, the signal and numbers were traced to near Station Ghanpur. The team nabbed him from his residence in Nyalapogula and sent him to judicial custody.
Bhaskar reportedly confessed that he used a SIM which he had found somewhere. The Hyderabad cyber crime police are planning to take him into police custody to find out about the number of victims he approached.
It was also revealed that a few years ago, he had been caught in a stalking case registered at Station Ghanpur police station and was sentenced to two years imprisonment.