Engineering student held for morphing nude photos

BHOPAL - An engineering student was arrested in Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur town on charges of morphing nude photographs of a girl from Guwahati in Assam whom he had befriended on a social networking site two years ago, police said Friday.

Arpit Bhargav, 19, was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Assam Police from his Jabalpur home Thursday based on a complaint lodged by the girl and her father Nov 19.

A two-member CID team arrested Bhargav, a computer engineering student of Takshila Institute of Technology in Jabalpur, with help from Madhya Pradesh Police.

Jabalpur Superintendent of Police Satender Shukla confirmed the arrest but said he could not give details as the case was being investigated by the CID of Assam.

After presenting him in the chief judicial magistrate’s court, the CID got Arpit’s remand for a week and on Friday took Bhargav to Assam for further inquiry.

CID sources said that according to the complaint lodged by the girl, Bhargav got in touch with her through a social networking site two years ago when she was studying in New Delhi.

The boy used a fake profile photograph in his account and both exchanged photographs through the site.

“According to the complaint, both were in touch through the networking site for a long time and fell in love,” the CID source said.

They exchanged photographs and talked over phone but when she came to know that the boy’s photographs were fake, she stopped talking to him and tried to snap ties.

But Bhargav sent threat messages on her profile and SMSes from three mobile phone numbers, the source said.

“When the girl asked him not to contact her any more, Arpit morphed her nude photographs and uploaded them on the networking site,” a CID officer said.

Based on the complaint, cyber crime sleuths of the CID started their probe and blocked Bhargav’s profile on the networking site but the student opened another account and again uploaded morphed nude photographs of the girl.

“We had a tough time to locate the boy as the photographs uploaded in his account were not his original. But we finally traced the mobile tower from where he sent SMSes to the girl to Azad Bakeri at Jayanagar in Jabalpur. We reached Jabalpur on Tuesday and apprehended him with the help of the local police,” the CID officer said.

CID sources said the three mobile phones that Bhargav used to send text messages were registered in his mother’s name.

The CID team seized the mobile phones and the computer used by teenager and found the obscene morphed photographs of the girl stored on his computer.