The police continued to grill Rahul Bhat, the son of a well-known astrologer, to ascertain the possible involvement of others in the blackmail racket. His mobile phone was seized and sent to FSL for technical analysis.
The cybercrime police arrested the 22-year-old son of Chandrashekar Bhat - better known as Chandrashekar Swamiji - for allegedly blackmailing the son of the Minister of Cooperation with a video clip. Based on a complaint by Nishanth Somashekhar, son of S.T. Somashekhar, the cybercrime police tracked down Rahul Bhat, based on the mobile number he used to allegedly blackmail the complainant and took him into custody for five days on Saturday
According to the police, Rahul had used a SIM from the UK to make ransom calls and send video clips. The police are now trying to retrieve the deleted data and find the list of people with whom Bhat had contact .
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The police said the SIM card used by Rahul belongs to the daughter of an MLA from North Karnataka who was studying in the UK and returned to city recently. The police are awaiting the report based on which she will be questioned.
The investigations continued to trace the raw footage of the video and the woman in the video. Police spect Rahul had used a city-based model in the video and efforts are on to track her down. Initial probe revealed that Rahul had planned for nearly two months to prepare the video before contacting the PA of the minister and his son for ransom. He accessed the SIM card of the UK from a friend who earlier borrowed the SIM from the daughter of the MLA, they said.