Youth arrested for blackmailing minor girl

A youth was today arrested for blackmailing a minor girl after befriending her pretending to be a girl over a popular web based friendship site from the southern part of the city.
Sarfaraz Ali (21) was arrested from his Palm Avenue residence by the cyber section of Kolkata Police for threatening to put some "private" photographs of the minor after he befriended her posing as a girl of same age and creating a fake account on the friendship site, the police said.
Based on an FIR lodged by the mother of the minor, a student of a reputed school in the city, in April this year, the police started looking for the accused and arrested the youth today.

"In this case a fake account was created by the accused, which took us a few months time to locate him detecting the IP address from which he was chatting with the minor. Two mobile phones, one micro SD card, and a birth certificate have been seized from him," the officer said.
The youth, it was learnt, did not know the minor girl, a resident of Naktala area in the southern part of the city, and created a fake account using some other girl's photo, he said.
"Then a few photographs were exchanged between them and the youth started threatening the girl to post them online. It was then when the minor's parents lodged an FIR," he said.

The youth has been charged under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) 2012 and IT Act, besides several other sections of the Indian Penal Code, he said.
When produced at a court, he was sent for police remand till October 5.