The Mumbai crime branch unit 4 has arrested a 45-year-old man for allegedly harassing a woman for extortion. The accused Raja Tarun Lunia, a resident of Rajasthan, had already extorted Rs 23,000 from her. However, when the harassment did not stop, the woman approached the police.
In the month of January, Lunia first approached the woman and demanded extortion, the victim who was not aware that Lunia chose to ignore him. Soon after, the accused started defaming her on social media. He started uploading her and her family's pictures claiming that they were thieves and sold kids as the woman used to work at a surrogacy centre in Gujrat a couple of years ago.
Fed up with the harassment, the victim paid Rs 23,000 and requested him to delete the defamatory content on social media. However, he refused and demanded Rs 5 lakh. The woman couldn't afford so much money and hence confided in her family who told her to approach cops.
Following her complaint, the Matunga police registered an offence of outraging the modesty of a woman, extortion, defamation along with the sections of Information Technology act. The crime branch unit 4 which conducted the parallel investigation arrested Lunia on Friday and handed her over to Matunga police for further investigation.
According to the police, Lunia and the victim didn't know each other and the only connect between them is through Lunia's current girlfriend. A few years ago, when the victim was working for a surrogacy centre in Gujarat as a care taker of a surrogate mother, Lunia's girlfriend came to their centre as a would-be surrogate mother. However, due to some dispute, the process did not work out but she blamed the victim for her losses, this is likely the reason behind extortion and defamation, said a crime branch officer.
