VIJAYAWADA: Four vernacular electronic media scribes blackmailed a 58-year-old farmer by threatening to upload his nude photos and videos online projecting him as a homosexual. While four of them were arrested on Sunday and put behind bars by police, the hunt is on for their partner-in-crime, identified as Anka Rao.
According to Challapalli Circle Inspector D Janardhana Rao, the victim, Nidamanuri Veera Swamy, is a well-to-do farmer. He is a widower and living alone. Since he is alone and no children to support him, the four seemed to have plotted to blackmail him, according to the CI.
The four accused, identified as Yedukondalu, CVR News bureau chief of Vijayawada, Giri Babu, Machilipatnam reporter of CVR News, Venkat, I News reporter, and Shaik Vali, a local news reporter, formed a gang and reportedly committed similar crimes in the past. Targeting mostly rich and lonely people, the gang reportedly blackmailed and collected lakhs of rupees from their victims in Machilipatnam and surrounding villages, according to police.
A few weeks ago, they allegedly went to Veera Swamy’s house and forcibly stripped him naked and shot nude videos of him. In order to project the victim as a homosexual, one of the accused, Anka Rao, also removed his own clothes and hugged the farmer while the other photographed them. “Armed with these photos and videos, the gang started blackmailing him for `10 lakh and threatened to upload the videos on YouTube and gay websites,” the CI told TNIE.
Fearing his reputation would be in danger, the farmer agreed to pay `3 lakh and gave `30,000 as the first installment. “When the gang started putting pressure on Veera Swamy to pay the balance amount and threatened to telecast the videos on their news channels, he approached us. We laid a trap on Saturday and arrested the four when they came to the victim’s house,” the CI added.