A 19-year-old commerce student from Dattawadi in Pune was blackmailed by online fraudsters, who threatened to make his nude photos public. He fell prey to the threats and paid Rs 4,500 to them, but ultimately ended his life on September 28 as he could not sustain the pressure. Another man, a 22-year-old student from Dhankawadi area of the city, also killed himself recently after he was harassed and blackmailed by cyber criminals, who threatened that they would share his nude video with his contacts on social media if he did not cough up money.

These are just a couple of examples from the growing list of 'sextortion' cases that the lurking cyber criminals are indulging in by using the ever-expanding social media space to their advantage. In Pune city alone, more than 1,400 sextortion cases have been reported so far this year, police said. In simple terms, sextortion means extorting money from victims by threatening that their private images or videos would be leaked on the Internet. With the increased use of social media, such offences are rising by the day.