The Ramamurthy Nagar police in Bengaluru arrested a 26-year-old event manager on Tuesday, for allegedly raping a minor girl student.
The accused, Pragadish Kapoor, was arrested following the 17-year-old victim’s complaint that he sedated and raped her. The incident took place at Pragadish’s residence on Sunday.
According to multiple media reports, the girl- a native of Mumbai- is currently a student of fashion design in Bengaluru.
Pragadish lured the girl into visiting his house on the pretext of discussing a modelling assignment and reportedly gave her milk laced with sedatives. Once the girl fell unconscious, Pragadish allegedly raped her and videotaped the whole incident.
The girl filed a police complaint on Tuesday, after Pragadish began to blackmail her with the video footage.
"As soon as we entered his house, he locked the door and stopped pretending. He directly asked me to have sex with him. I was shocked and told him I wasn't well and wanted to leave. But he forcibly made me drink a glass of milk, which made me drowsy. He then raped and videographed me. When I asked him to delete it, he said he would do so if I sleep with him again,” the girl told Bangalore Mirror.
Other media reports state that Pragadish threatened the girl that he would upload the video on the internet if she did not continue the physical relationship with him.
Reports say that the police have recovered Pragadhish’s cell phone, laptop and have sent them to the cyber cell.
The BM report also states that the police have found several photos of other models in the accused’s phone, which they believe were used by him to blackmail them.
Pragadish, who is currently in police custody and charged with POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act, will be sent to judicial custody on Thursday.