Dharwad Police nab six for running social media blackmail scheme

Dharwad: Six young men have been arrested by the Dharwad suburban police for allegedly running a blackmail scheme where they morphed photos of unsuspecting students, added vulgar audio, and posted them on social media troll pages. The group then demanded hefty sums of money from their victims to take down the manipulated images, leading to their capture after a frustrated student reported the extortion to the police.

Among those arrested, four are reportedly students from different districts who had come to Dharwad to prepare for competitive exams, while the other two are final-year BA students at a well-known college in the city. The group was managing multiple troll pages on platforms like Instagram, where they posted the manipulated images.

The recent incident that led to their arrest involved a group photo of college students taken at an event. The youths edited the photo, added vulgar audio, and shared it on social media. When the affected students asked for the images to be removed, the culprits demanded payments ranging from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 20,000 to take down the posts.

Frustrated and unable to comply with the demands, one of the students decided to report the matter to the police. Hubballi-Dharwad Police Commissioner N Shashikumar acknowledged the case in a briefing and stated that a case was registered at the Dharwad Suburban Police Station on Monday. “The complainant stated that some individuals had downloaded a picture of his friends, altered it in a defamatory manner, and then demanded money to remove it from social media.”

The police are now looking into the possibility of other victims and plan to request custody of the arrested youths to further investigate the extent of their activities.