Mumbai: Woman loan borrower gets morphed photo; 1 held

Mumbai: A 23-year-old man was arrested from Goa for allegedly harassing a woman loan borrower by sending her a morphed, obscene photograph and threatening to upload it on social media. The suspect was identified as Chhutu Nilu Soren, a Jharkhand native.

According to the complainant, she was facing a financial crunch in March, so she downloaded the 'Money View' loan app on her mobile phone and borrowed money. While taking the loan, she had uploaded a photograph and documents detailing her personal details. While repaying the loan, the woman again borrowed money from the same app. Then in June, she took a third loan.

Even before the due date of the loan installment, the complainant received a WhatsApp message asking her to pay the debt. As the text was sent by another app 'Coin Cash', the woman refused to give the money. The very next moment she received a picture of her, which was obscenely morphed, from three different WhatsApp numbers, said the police.

The sender threatened to make the photo viral hence the woman immediately approached the police and lodged a complaint. Swinging into action, the cops traced the location of the phone numbers from which the photo was sent. The tracking results indicated that the numbers were found to be in the names of people from Goa, Kolhapur and Uttar Pradesh.

Subsequently, investigating officer Raja Bidkar extracted the IP addresses of these numbers and zeroed down on the suspect's location in Panaji, Goa. A team rushed to the coastal state and apprehended the suspect. He was booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act.

Further probe is to ascertain if he has harassed others, too, in a similar manner.

Published on: Thursday, December 29, 2022, 03:11 AM IST