The Meerut police have uncovered an organised honeytrap and extortion racket in the Lisari Gate area, arresting four people, including two women, for blackmailing a cloth trader by threatening to make his private videos public. The arrests were made following a complaint by the victim, who claimed he was extorted of cash and valuables after being trapped through a video call.
According to police officials, the accused targeted a cloth trader, Arun, a resident of Prahlad Nagar in Meerut. In his complaint, Arun stated that he had received a call from a woman named Amreen, and later she had made a video call with him. She had recorded the video secretly and had later threatened him with showing the video on social media sites unless he paid her a large sum of money.
Out of fear of public humiliation, Arun initially paid ₹1.07 lakh in cash and also handed over a gold chain weighing around 10 grams. However, the harassment did not stop there. The woman called him to her house, where her mother, Shamima, along with Atiq and Aftab, were already present. The group reportedly surrounded him, recorded more videos, and threatened to implicate him in false cases if he did not comply with their demands.
The trader said that he was repeatedly threatened with death and was asked to pay ₹5 lakh as “protection money.” When the demands continued even after the initial payment, Arun finally approached the Lisari Gate police station and filed a complaint.
Following an investigation, police found the allegations to be true and arrested all four accused. During the raid, police recovered ₹35,000 in cash, a gold chain, and four mobile phones believed to have been used in the crime. The accused are being produced before the court, and further investigation is underway to find out if more victims were targeted using the same method.
The case was registered at the Lisari Gate police station of Meerut on Sunday, 14th December. This FIR has been filed on the written complaint report filed by the victim, Arun himself. The names of the accused in the FIR include Amreen, Shamima, Atiq, and Aftab. This case under sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, is currently under investigation by Sub-Inspector Sumit Kumar.
