Badin police arrest man accused of blackmailing girl who died by suicide

Published May 21, 2019
18-year-old wrote in suicide note that she wanted to live, but her tormentors had made her life miserable. ─ AP/File
18-year-old wrote in suicide note that she wanted to live, but her tormentors had made her life miserable. ─ AP/File

Police in Badin on Tuesday arrested a man after he, along with two others, were allegedly accused by a teenage girl ─ who took her own life on Sunday ─ and her family, of blackmailing her with doctored photos and "making her life miserable".

An 18-year-old girl in Badin, Anila Parmar, took her own life by ingesting poison on Sunday. In a suicide note, she narrated her ordeal, and wrote: "I want to live, but Soam Meghwar, Mahesh and Ashok have made my life miserable."

The case caught the attention of Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Badin Hassan Sardar Niazi after it was raised by activists on social media, who demanded justice for the family.

SSP Niazi visited the Parmar family on Monday and assured them of his support in tracking down the suspects.

Station House Officer (SHO) Tando Ghulam Ali Riaz Rind was ordered to register a First Information Report against the suspects and arrest those involved in blackmailing the victim.

According to the FIR registered on Monday by Dr Lakhman Parmar, the victim's father, at the Tando Ghulam Ali police station, three men had blackmailed his daughter for the past six months using doctored images of her. They extorted Rs50,000 from her monthly by sending her the edited photos, the FIR stated.

The FIR was registered under Pakistan Penal Code Sections 322 (manslaughter), 506 (2) (punishment for criminal intimidation), 385 (putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion), 500 (defamation) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention).

In conversation with local journalists, Dr Parmar and other relatives alleged that Anila had committed suicide after being blackmailed by the suspects, who belonged to the same community as the victim.

They alleged that the suspects had sent a doctored image of her to her fiance, who then broke off their engagement. When she became engaged to another individual, they sent that man a doctored image of her too, after which he refused to marry her, the family members claimed, adding that she had committed suicide after that.

Dr Parmar maintained that his daughter had taken the extreme step of taking her own life because she was sick of the continuous blackmail.

SSP Niazi on Tuesday announced that the prime suspect in the case was arrested today, while the other two are still at large. He added that raids are ongoing to track down and arrest the two men.

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