Hyderabad: The wife of inspector Balaswamy, who was arrested and remanded to judicial custody for allegedly cheating and sexually exploiting a 40-year-old woman, has alleged that he was also among the victims of a honey-trap racket allegedly operated by 23-year-old fraudster K Pavan Kumar, who was recently arrested by Saidabad police. Based on her complaint, Khairatabad police registered a criminal case against Pavan.Saidabad police arrested Pavan on Monday following a complaint by a 22-year-old engineering student. The student alleged that Pavan had extorted about ₹4 lakh from him since 2024 by threatening to circulate his private videos online.Pavan, an unemployed polytechnic diploma dropout from Kukatpally, allegedly created 13 fake Instagram accounts and 14 fake Facebook accounts, mostly using obscene photographs of random women under the name Chandana. According to Charminar DCP Kiran Khare, the accused chatted with men while posing as a woman and steered conversations towards sexual content.“He induced them to exchange nude pictures. He had stored nude photos and videos of 82 men on his phones to blackmail them. After gathering personal information, Pavan introduced himself as Chandana’s brother and interacted with the victims. He even met some of them directly and blackmailed them for money by threatening to make his sister file a police complaint,” the DCP said.Police said Pavan chatted with more than 1,000 people, of whom 82 sent him nude photographs or videos. Among the victims, 24 are from other states, and nine are from abroad. The list includes doctors, businessmen, lecturers and gig workers. According to police, Pavan extorted over ₹25 lakh from victims over the past few years. He was arrested on Monday and remanded to judicial custody.While Saidabad police have moved a petition seeking Pavan’s police custody, inspector Balaswamy’s wife filed a separate complaint against him at Khairatabad police station on Tuesday. Balaswamy was arrested by Saidabad police in the second week of Oct for allegedly cheating a 40-year-old woman on the false promise of marriage and sexually exploiting her.Balaswamy’s wife alleged that her husband came into contact with ‘Chandana’ on Instagram and Facebook, following which Pavan, posing as Chandana’s cousin, contacted him a few months ago. “Pavan misled my husband by assuring him that he would arrange his marriage with Chandana. Using social media chats, he blackmailed my husband and extorted about ₹10 lakh from him. Pavan also prevented my husband from meeting the family,” the complainant alleged.Khairatabad police booked Pavan under sections 308(7) (extortion), 351(2) (criminal intimidation) and 127(7) (wrongful confinement) of the BNS, besides relevant provisions of the IT Act. “Saidabad police have sought Pavan’s police custody and, once that process is completed, we will arrest him in our case,” Khairatabad inspector B Venkat Reddy said.
