On September 30, police revealed that Sanjeev Singh, the prime accused in Chandigarh University Video Leak case, has blackmailed multiple women. Earlier, police had said that the mobile number that Sanjeev Singh was using was the one where the accused female student of the university was sending videos of herself and other students.
Using the number, the police managed to retrieve data and found that Sanjeev Singh allegedly blackmailed other women as well. Hindustan Times quoted an official familiar with the matter saying the number Sanjeev was using was found to be flagged as ‘scammer’ in a social media app. They found some comments that the person using the phone number blackmailed them.
The SIT team formed to investigate the matter is waiting for the forensic analysis of the accused’s mobile phone to get further clarity on the matter.
Sanjeev refuted allegations
During interrogation, Sanjeev reportedly refuted the allegations that he blackmailed the female student. He claimed that both of them were in a relationship, following which she herself shared the personal videos.
The ‘friendship’ app where the two accused met
As per an Indian Express report, Sanjeev Singh and the female University student met online on a ‘friendship’ application. They shared numbers and started chatting frequently. The police allegedly found that both of them were exchanging videos frequently.
The report suggested that the police found out that Sanjeev had convinced the female student to send photos and videos of herself. Though other reports suggest that the female student was sending videos of other students as well, the Indian Express report claimed that the police did not find any other students’ videos.
Sanjeev Singh is reportedly married and has a child as well. Indian Express quoted an unnamed official saying, “The online friendship app used to provide the numbers of men and women randomly to its users. The app has since disappeared from Playstore. We believe that Sanjeev Singh got the number of the woman accused and then befriended her through this app. He then convinced her to send her pictures and videos.”
The accused female student’s parents blame her ‘low IQ’ for falling into the trap
As per the IE report, the female student’s parents have claimed that their daughter has a low IQ. The report suggested that some time ago, they got her Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Adults (WAIS) test done and found out that their daughter has a very low Intelligence Quotient or IQ. They have claimed that this might be the reason that she fell into Sanjeev Singh’s trap.
Rankaj withdrew bail application
As per reports, police submitted in the court on Thursday that Rankaj Verma, another accused arrested in the case, had confessed to circulating the videos among his peers. The police argued that if he was granted bail, that would affect the investigation. Later, the bail plea filed by Rankaj was withdrawn from the court. His advocate Harvinder Singh Johal said in a statement that a fresh bail plea would be filed for him. He said, “Rankaj never met any of the co-accused, and police failed to recover any video from his mobile phone. We will file a fresh bail plea on Saturday.”
Rankaj Verma has denied involvement in the matter and said he does not know the others accused in the case.
Judicial custody extended
On October 1, the four accused, including the female student of Chandigarh University, were produced in court. The court sent the three accused, Rankaj Verma, Sunny Mehta and the female student, to judicial custody. The police custody of Sanjeev Singh was extended for three more days.
The Chandigarh University Video Leak case
On September 18, it was reported that objectionable videos of multiple female students of Chandigarh University were being shared on social media. The videos were allegedly recorded by one of the hostellers.
Initially, the Police and University administration claimed the accused student only shared her videos with the accused person from Shimla. However, later the police told the court that they found a video of at least one other student on the phone of the accused. Furthermore, it was assumed that based on the chats with the accused, the accused student was being blackmailed.
An SIT was formed by the Punjab government to investigate the case. There were several rumours floating around on the day when the matter came to light, including the death of a girl student by suicide whose video was allegedly leaked on the internet. However, the police refuted the claims and said no student had committed suicide.
