Thaindian News

New Delhi, Sep 20 (IANS) A Mumbai-based businessman has been arrested for allegedly blackmailing sitar player Anoushka Shankar, daughter of world-renowned artist Pandit Ravi Shankar, and demanding $100,000 for her “private” pictures, Delhi Police said Sunday.
Delhi Police Special Cell sleuths arrested the businessman identified as Junaid, 29, on Sep 16.

Police took him in on two-day police custody after booking him under section 386 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) relating to “extortion by putting in fear of death or hurt”.

The crime fetches a maximum punishment of 10 years in jail. According to police officials, provisions of the IT Act have also been slapped on Junaid.

Police sources said a case was registered and investigations were entrusted to Delhi Police’s Special Cell Sep 7 after Ravi Shankar wrote to the union home secretary.

“The accused had hacked Anoushka’s e-mail account and gained access to some of her private photographs. He was blackmailing her and sent at least six mails demanding money for not making the photographs public. He demanded $100,000 from her,” said a senior Delhi Police official, declining to be named.

“The businessman was harbouring grudges against her after their friendship soured. He has been sent to judicial custody now,” the official added.

Pandit Ravi Shanker told police that Anoushka had given her laptop for repair to a south Delhi firm in February. Police then zeroed down on the staff of the service centre and interrogated some people there. From the leads gained in interrogation, they traced the accused in Mumbai and arrested him.