A 20-year-old college student from Gujarat’s Banaskantha district was allegedly raped by seven persons repeatedly for nearly 16 months after being blackmailed with her nude video,quoted police officials as saying on Wednesday.
According to the FIR, one of the accused befriended the woman over Instagram months after she started attending a college in Palanpur in 2023. In November that year, he persuaded her to join him for breakfast at a hotel.
The FIR claimed the accused identified as Vishal Chaudhary allegedly spilled food on her dress and took her to a room on the pretext of cleaning it.
When the woman removed her clothes in the bathroom, Chaudhary allegedly barged inside it and filmed her. When she protested, the accused threatened to make the video public and post it on Instagram.
Using the same clip, he forced the student to have physical relations with him and his friends at different places on different occasions between November 2023 and February 2025, the FIR alleged.
After the woman approached the Palanpur taluka police, a case was registered against six identified and an unknown person under sections concerning repeated rape and criminal intimidation of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
The accused have also been booked under section 67 of the Information Technology Act concerning the publication or transmission of obscene material in electronic form. Efforts are being made to nab the accused persons, said a police official.