Jorhat Suicide: Not A Case Of Honey Trapping Or Blackmail, Says Top Cop

The additional superintendent of police (ASP) of Jorhat in Assam on Sunday outright rejected the idea of honey trapping or blackmailing and said that preliminary investigations in the case do not hint towards that. However, the police officer did say that the accused may have looked to make money by selling the videos to pornographic websites.

The Jorhat ASP was addressing the media today regarding the recent case where an elderly man committed suicide after an intimate video of his with a much younger woman went viral on the internet.

He said, “You may be familiar with the case that in the last few days, an obscene video has been shared widely on social media. In that regard, a young woman had registered a case at the Jorhat Sadar Police Station on May 1 numbered 215/23 under sections 328, 376 and 354 of the IPC (Indian Penal Code) read with section 67, 67 (A) of the Information Technology (IT) Act. An investigation into the case was launched and we inspected the videos that were shared online. Soon we also detained all the people associated with the case.”

The Jorhat ASP said, “We found information about two people, Kishaloi Sharma, originally from Margherita but was staying in Jorhat and Abhishek Kashyap, a resident of Jorhat. Of them, Kishaloi Sharma has been arrested and sent to police custody. You may also be familiar with the case that took place on May 5 under Pulibor Police Station in Jorhat pertaining to an elderly man who committed suicide. We suspect that the two cases are related. We are investigating both the cases simultaneously.”

He further informed, “During our probe into the case, we found that the accused young woman had relations with both of our suspects Abhishek and Kishaloi and they had recorded their intimate acts. The videos were not made forcefully or without consent and were later uploaded on social media and other pornographic sites. So far, our investigations have revealed this much and we shall further update you as it proceeds.”

Moreover, he also mentioned that all of those accused in the case were students from different educational institutions. He said that all three of them including the prime accused woman have been remanded to three days of police custody and will be questioned regarding the matter.

Meanwhile, there have been reports of a larger nexus at play with the prime accused woman, Darshana Bharali, said to have uploaded over 500 intimate videos of her with different men on pornographic websites. Addressing this, the police official mentioned that they had seized a laptop and mobile phones and those have been sent for investigations which will reveal more about the case.

In a further revelation, the top cop said that initial investigations into the case points towards the act of recording the videos for entertainment and nothing else. He said, “It does not look like they had any objective behind recording the videos. We feel this was more for their personal entertainment. However, the videos were uploaded on pornographic websites and social media and we are now looking into how that happened." There might have been an ulterior motivation of selling the videos to pornographic websites to make money, he added.

It may be noted that a 72-year-old man in Assam’s Jorhat died by suicide recently after a video of him surfaced online where he was seen in a compromising position with the college going woman.

Sources said that the young woman is accused of entrapping the elderly man and having sexual intercourse with him, the video of which she had uploaded on a pornographic site.

The accused girl, identified as Darshana Bharali, had secretly recorded the act on her mobile phone and allegedly uploaded it on a porn site. The video then went viral in the locality, prompting the elderly man to take the extreme step as he couldn't bear the shame that it brought to his family, sources informed.

It is learned that the girl had previously entrapped several men, had physical relations with them, and uploaded their private videos on porn websites. The incident caused a massive stir in the area with the deceased’s family demanding strict punishment against the accused girl.

Also Read: Jorhat Suicide Case: 3 Including Accused Remanded to 3-Day Police Custody