Woman on run for three years after extorting Rs 11 lakh, nabbed: Police

PTI, Jul 17, 2022, 12:16 PM IST

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New Delhi: A 29-year-old woman who was absconding for three years after extorting Rs 11 lakh from her associate’s boss by threatening to upload and make his ”obscene videos” and ”naked pictures” viral on social media platforms has been finally arrested from Ghaziabad here, police said on Sunday.

Vandana Rajput was traced and arrested from a flat at an apartment in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad on July 12, they said.

The incident took place with the victim, a resident of Najafgarh who owns a travel agency in Koshambi in Uttar Pradesh in the year 2018, police said.

However, an FIR was registered a year later after the incident, when Rajput demanded an extra Rs five lakh from the man threatening him with dire consequences if he didn’t pay the amount, a senior police officer said.

According to the complainant, on May 5, 2018, his driver Ramesh Lal came to his office at around 2-3 PM and took him to show his rented room on the fourth floor of a tower building opposite Ghazipur Bus Depot. He sat on a cot and after drinking tea served by Lal’s female associate whom he had introduced as his wife, the victim became unconscious. His drink was mixed with an intoxicating substance. After an hour, when he regained his consciousness, he found himself fully naked on the cot, the complainant said.

When he asked Lal about it, the duo told him that they had recorded his obscene video and taken photographs. On hearing this, he got frightened.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Lal and Rajput started extorting money from him after threatening him to upload his obscene video and photographs on social media. He paid Rs 11 lakhs to them as per their demand, it said.

However, after some time, the duo again started demanding Rs five lakh from him with the help of Atul Singh, who used to work as a helper on the bus owned by the victim, said Rohit Meena, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime).

In this way, Singh also extorted Rs 40,000 from the complainant by threatening him, Meena said.

During these years, the accused woman Vandana kept changing her address constantly after the registration of the FIR. But she was finally tracked down and arrested from her flat in Ghaziabad after police received a specific input about her movement, he added.

Disclosing about her family, Rajput told police that she was born in Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh, and studied up to BSc. She has a mother, an elder sister, and a brother. Her father who was a farmer died in 2012. After the death of her father, she came to Noida and started doing a private job in a company, the DCP said.

”In 2014, she came in contact with Lal, who was working as a driver on the bus the complainant. So, she hatched a criminal conspiracy and extorted Rs 11 lakhs from him and further demanded Rs five lakh from the complainant by putting him under fear of uploading his obscene video and photographs on social media and also threatened him of dire consequences,” she told the police. A SIM card that was used to make extortion calls has also been recovered, police said, efforts are being made to trace those who are still absconding in connection with the case.