12 February,2015 11:25 AM IST | | Shiva Devnath
He received an extortion call 6 months ago and was threatened with pornographic images of his daughter; once culprit was apprehended, it turned out he did not have any such photos
Nearly six months ago, a Gujarati businessman got a nightmare call from a crook who claimed to hold pornographic images of his daughter and demanded R1.84 crore in return for them.
But he can now breathe easy, as not only did the Social Service branch of the Mumbai police apprehend the culprit in Andheri (West) on Tuesday evening, they also discovered that he never had any such photographs to begin with.
Representational picture
It all began in August 2014, when the businessman's daughter moved to Mumbai to study. When she dropped her purse at the Lotus petrol pump in Oshiwara, it was picked up by Nayan Jadhav (54), an unemployed man who lived in the hutments just behind the fuel station.
In the purse, Jadhav found a passport picture of the girl, as well as her father's business card. He wrote a letter to the businessman, claiming to have naked pictures of his daughter. To make the story more convincing, he described the girl with the help of her passport photo.
Worried that the pictures were real, the businessman went to meet Jadhav at the spot he had mentioned in his letter. When he did not find anyone there, he left a note with his phone number, on which Jadhav began calling to make further threats of posting the pictures online.
Wiser by this time, however, the businessman began recording the calls and then eventually wrote to the Mumbai police commissioner. After several failed attempts to nab the accused, the commissioner handed over the case to the Social Service cops, who asked the businessman to accept Jadhav's demands.
He attempted to bargain with Jadhav and convinced him to accept an initial payment of R4 lakh, which he left at Lotus petrol pump. When Jadhav went to pick up the money, the police were waiting for him.
Jadhav was then handed over to the Oshiwara police station, where Senior Police Inspector Subhash Vele said, "We produced Jadhav in court and he is now in police custody. We have his letters, but there were no photos to be recovered, and no money had been exchanged."
