UAE men jailed for blackmailing girl on WhatsApp

Dubai - The main accused got the student's mobile phone number after he chatted with her brother on WhatsApp pretending to be a girl.

A Pakistani man, who harassed a college student repeatedly and threatened her he would burn her house down unless she dated him, has been sentenced to six months in jail.

His two compatriot friends, a cleaner and a mechanic, aged 20 and 33, were also sentenced to six months in jail each for making criminal threats and abusing the telecommunications services to harass the student and threaten her.

The Court of First Instance ordered that the three men be deported after completing their jail terms.

The main accused got the Pakistani student's mobile phone number after he chatted with her brother on WhatsApp pretending to be a girl.

He then spread her number among his friends and they kept calling and texting her to invite her out with threats that they would circulate her photos and her sister's online, after altering them to be inappropriate, and defame them if she did not befriend and date them. They also threatened to burn her car and house down.

According to public prosecution records, the first suspect disappeared after learning the CID officers were looking for him following a complaint from the student. But he was apprehended later.

The complaint was filed on August 14, 2016, at Al Rafaa police station.

The complainant, 22, said the main defendant sent her a message on WhatsApp in May, 2016, claiming he was her schoolmate. He then started to call her from different numbers after she blocked him.

"He would send messages that he would expose my dark past in front of my family in case I did not talk to him on the phone and go out with him. He said he would circulate my photos online and threaten me even though I don't have a dark past".

She said he would call her around 20 times and send her more than 100 messages a day. "When I eventually talked with one of them he said he wanted to be my boyfriend and that he knew my house and car location. After they threatened to burn my house and car and defame me within my family, I panicked and felt real scared so I filed a complaint at the police station," she told the prosecutor.

A police sergeant said the main accused's two accomplices admitted to having harassed and threatened the student and claimed they had got her number from him.

mary@khaleejtimes.com