‘Revenge porn,’ a hate crime with a global character, appears to have come to Kerala.
In the run-up to her marriage, a 21-year-old nursing student learned that her husband-to-be had received intimate photos of her unclothed on his WhatsApp account. Her brother also received the images.
The upsetting development drove the student to the verge of suicide. She and her brother complained to IG, Crime Branch, S. Sreejith, who opened a criminal inquiry into the affair.
The police learned that the woman had a relationship with an engineering student in Coimbatore. It was a kinship struck on Facebook.
The affinity faded over the years, and they resolved to separate in 2015. However, the images and video of the affair remained in possession of the male partner.
M. Iqbal, Dy.SP, Cyber Police Station, said the woman’s groom and her brother had received the images from a WhatsApp account initiated using a now-defunct mobile phone number.
The police traced the number to an engineering graduate in Tamil Nadu.
They raided his home and seized a laptop and mobile phone, which on examination yielded images of the woman. They arrested him on the charge of transmitting obscene material in electronic form under Section 67 of the IT Act.
Senior CB officials said the suspect, consumed by an angst to keep the woman at his mercy, used the images to thwart her marriage.
