HONEYTRAPS IN THE MEWAT

On Monday, February 14, the Bhopal police arrested Ravin Khan and Warris Khan, both in their early 20s, from Bharatpur in Rajasthan as the main suspects in a ‘sextortion’ video call case filed by BJP MP and 2008 Malegaon blasts case accused Sadhvi Pragya Thakur.

- Rohit Parihar

The MP claimed that on the night of February 6, she received a video call during the course of which the woman at the other end began taking off her clothes. Thakur disconnected the call but soon received a photograph of her and a naked woman in the same frame—followed by extortion threats.

This was no isolated incident; sextortion cases, especially those originating in Rajasthan and the Mewat region, have been on the rise in the last couple of years. On January 30, a 19-year-old model attempted suicide by jumping off the sixth floor of a hotel in Jodhpur in a case involving an attempt to honeytrap state revenue minister Ramlal Jat. The main accused in the case is Akshat Sharma, whose antecedents include a previous arrest in 2016 for running a similar racket to trap the rich and vulnerable in false rape cases. He was out on bail and was posing as an online news channel reporter for the new caper. Akshat, along with an Udaipurbased beautician, Deepaly, was using teenage models for ‘assignments’. He wanted the girl who attempted suicide to seduce the minister during his official visits to Bhilwara, but she panicked and returned to her hometown Jodhpur, where she jumped off the hotel roof after revealing to family members her plight. Akshat, meanwhile, had sent two other women posing as reporters to persuade the minister to sign a file during a public hearing in Bhilwara. When Ramlal refused, Akshat allegedly called him to suggest that he meet the two women in private. The minister says he declined the offer.