New Delhi, June 12: In a shocking incident that occurred in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh, police on Thursday arrested four men for allegedly gang-raping, filming, and blackmailing a gay man.
The local police have charged all the accused of gang-raping another man, after befriending him on the LGBTQ community dating app Grindr.
The police said that the accused also filmed the entire incident and attempted to extort Rs 2.00 lakh from the survivor while threatening to leak the clips.
The local police said that the survivor is a polytechnic diploma holder, who befriended 20-year-old Gautam from Sikandarabad and called him for a meet-up.
On his arrival at the fixed location for the meeting, the victim found that three more persons were also there. They allegedly thrashed and raped him and filmed the incident.
Quoting a senior police officer, a report said that the four accused used the 2nd Line mobile app to call and blackmail the survivor.
"They later thrashed him and forced him to transfer ₹ 5,000 through PhonePe app to them," a police spokesperson said.
The police also said that the four accused are related to each other, while Gautam and Gaurav (23) are reportedly siblings, Sachin (26) and Mohit (25) are their cousins. These accused seemed to be extremely techno-savvy, as they were using various online apps and technology to trap and blackmail the victim.
The police seized the mobile phone used for filming the incident. Further investigation revealed that there are at least 10-12 similar videos.
Following an investigation, it was found out that the accused Sachin was a repeat offender and had tried to trap an Assistant Engineer of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in a similar manner and had demanded Rs 1.80 crore from his family three years ago.
A case has been registered in this regard under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 342 (wrongful confinement), 377 (unnatural offences), and 384 (extortion) of the Indian Penal Code, the police said.