Bangalore, Jul 5: A car thief by profession, 31-year-old Parameshwaran used to sneak into bedrooms and washrooms in different localities of Bangalore, use his cellphone camera to record porn video, and then send the CDs to his victims to rake in big moolah, reports Bangalore Mirror.
When the Madiwala police first arrested Parameshwaran, in May this year, they thought he was just another car thief, from a remote Tamil Nadu village who had come to the city.
But when some strange complaints from nearby localities led the police to investigate further, they discovered that Parameshwaran was a blackmailer too.
The man would break into houses and install hidden cameras in bedrooms and bathrooms. At a later date, he would break in again and take away the cameras. Then, using the intimate scenes and pictures that his cameras captured, he would blackmail the victims, forcing them to part with money or provide him sexual favours.
“Parameshwaran used to make copies of the CDs, write his contact number on their back cover and drop them at the house concerned. If a male called him, he would ask for money. If the caller was a female, he sought sexual favours,” the investigation officer told Bangalore Mirror.
His threat was that if the victims did not comply, he would put up the videos on the internet or release them among their friends and colleagues.
“His victims complained to the police. One of the complainants was a Mumbai-based techie who met southeast DCP P S Harsha and convinced him of the gravity of the crime,” the officer added.
In one case, Parameshwaran collected a cool Rs 10 lakh. Police sources revealed that he has already made more than Rs 1.5 crore through such blackmails.
Madiwala police have seized a CD containing proof of his well-paying voyeurism, and five complaints of blackmail have been registered.
Back in his village near Madurai, Parameshwaran used to run a dog and bird breeding centre. To buy puppies, he used to come Bangalore once or twice a month. He was taken in by the glitter of the moneyed lifestyle and decided that it was what he wanted too.
As the son of a mechanic, he was familiar with vehicles and in 2009, he started stealing vehicles in Bangalore and Chennai.
Within a year, he had stolen eight vehicles. He then began breaking into houses. He has been named in four cases of house theft in various districts of Tamil Nadu. In Bangalore, his first brush with the law was in May 2011 when Vyalikaval police arrested him for vehicle lifting. But within a few days, he got bail and returned home.
It was around the same time that some police stations in the city received complaints from people being blackmailed with pictures of them in the nude and in bedroom scenes.
Five complaints were registered in Madiwala and Mico Layout police stations. The trail led to Parameshwaran who was nabbed in his home town.
They recovered four CDs, mobile clips, two cars and some jewellery.
Police Commissioner Jyoti Prakash Mirji said, he used to climb on to ledges of
windows or adjoining terraces and take photographs of women while bathing or undressing in their homes on his mobile phone or camera, Mirji told reporters here today.
He would then make CDs of these images, send them to his victims' residence with his mobile number and blackmail them to part with huge amounts, threatening that otherwise he would post the photographs on the internet. PTI
