A man in his 20s has alleged that a man he met through a dating app used his private photographs to blackmail him into sharing his ATM card and its PIN.
Mohammad Ghulam, who had introduced himself as Sahil on the app, was picked up from his home in Tiljala’s Shibtala Lane on Wednesday night.
Ghulam, an app cab driver, is married and has children. Police suspect he is part of a racket that targets homosexual men.
The complainant, a resident of Birati, works at an office in Kasba. He has told the police that he got to know the accused through the app and after a few weeks met him at Ballygunge Phanri. They had spent some time at a place in the Beniapukur area, he has said.
“During this meeting, the accused had taken off the man’s clothes and photographed him. He had then threatened to publish the photographs and taken the man’s ATM card and PIN, with which he withdrew Rs 30,000,” an officer of Gariahat police station, where the man lodged the complaint, said.
The accused had returned the card and allowed the man to go, the officer said.
“It is rare to find such cases being reported. In most cases, people don’t report for fear of stigma,” an officer at Lalbazar said. “But we should encourage people to raise their voice against such crimes where vulnerable men and women are targeted.”
The real identity of the accused could be ascertained by tracking the phone number he had used to contact the man. But he had fled the state.
On Wednesday when he returned home to Tiljala, he was arrested.
A court granted the police permission on Thursday to conduct a test identification parade inside the jail and remanded him in judicial custody.
In the test identification parade, the complainant will have to identify the accused from among a group of men of similar build and height.