The Police Children and Women’s Bureau has arrested two suspects in connection with an attempt by a man in England to extort Rs. 1.7 million by intimidating a woman in Wellawatte recognized through social media and connected through WhatsApp for over a year.
The woman is married and a resident of Wellawatte. The person she identified through the social media network is a resident of Jaffna and is currently in England. She had an affair with a man she had never met on social media and kept in touch with him through WhatsApp phone calls and video calls. It is said that in some cases, at his request, she was naked in front of the WhatsApp video call.
The two have been at loggerheads over a recent feud and since then a resident of England has been calling and threatening her to post nude photos on social media if she does not pay Rs. 1.7 million. She feared this and complained to the Police Child and Women Abuse Prevention Bureau. On the advice of the Bureau, she had promised to pay him Rs. 0.7 million as part of the Rs. 1.7 million. Accordingly, he had sent two of his friends from SL to Union Place yesterday to collect the ransom money and the officers of the Children and Women’s Bureau had arrested them.
The Children and Women Abuse Prevention Bureau states that the suspects are residents of Slave Island and are being investigated.