Three students, from two reputed colleges in the city, have been arrested on the charges of stealing another student’s cellphone, extracting the memory chip, and blackmailing him and his girlfriend with photographs stored in the handset.
The girl is a model based in Mumbai.
The students, all in their early 20s, allegedly stole the phone at a restaurant in Electronic City on October 4.
According to the police, they extracted the memory chip and sold the phone to a dealer. “They used the money to buy marijuana,” said a police officer.
After a month, when they checked the memory card, they stumbled upon photographs of the boy and videos of the couple.
The students contacted the couple and threatened to upload the images on social media if they did not give them Rs. 1 lakh.
“They started harassing the couple over the last 15 days,” said a police officer.
The owner of the cellphone, who had already filed a case with the police, approached the police.
Investigators asked the cellphone owner to negotiate and bring down the ransom amount to Rs. 50,000.
After finalising the deal, a team of plain-clothes policemen used the information to track down the accused.
They found that they all lived in the same neighbourhood on Hosa Road in Parappana Agrahara.
On Saturday, the day of the exchange, the police surrounded the neighbourhood and caught the trio red-handed. The students have been booked for blackmail, criminal intimidation among other charges and remanded to judicial custody.
