Thrissur: The police are seeking two women who set a honey trap for an engineer from Kannur with a plan to corner large sums of money. Three men linked to the racket are in custody, but the women and the husband of one of them are absconding. Interestingly, the gang could not extract much money from the engineer because his bank account was empty.
The engineer met Naseema of Kodungallur four years back. He developed an intimacy with her female friends swiftly, but all of a sudden Naseema went out of focus. Recently he checked her WhatsApp profile and found another woman along with her. His fancy for the alluring new face led him to a trap. The engineer asked Naseema to arrange a meeting with her friend. “Come over to Kodungallur,” she said. “I will introduce her to you at my flat.” On a trip to Kochi, the young man landed at Kodungallur. Naseema and her friend Shemina were waiting on the roadside, from where he picked them up and drove to Naseema's flat after buying lunch on the way.
As they were having lunch at Naseema's flat, some men entered, and assaulted the engineer, shouting against what they called immoral traffic. They demanded money, but when the engineer refused, they shot photos and videos on the mobile phone. Naseema and Shemina cried aloud and pleaded with the engineer to pay some cash and send the men away. They took Rs 35,000 which the engineer had in his wallet, and seized his ATM card. But once they checked at the ATM kiosk, they found the engineer was running a zero balance account.
Disappointed, they came back to the flat and beat up the engineer again. The women were crying out all the while and the engineer put up a fight to defend them. He tried to call the police, but the man seized the phone, switched it off and assaulted him again. They threatened to take away his car unless he deposited Rs 3 lakh in his account for them to draw. The engineer agreed. The men threatened that the video and the photos would be posted on the social media if he spoke to anyone about it. Naseema and Shemina begged him to pay the money, saying that they risk being maligned.
The engineer had enough. Emerging from the flat, he went straight to Kodungallur police station and explained everything. The police soon found that it was Naseema and Shemina who had organised the whole blackmail drama with the idea of extracting money. The “moral goons” were in fact their friends who joined the plot. Everyone vanished once the police entered the scene.
Three men Shyam Babu, Anish and Sangeeth, who had acted as moral goons and were staying with Shemina in a flat at Aranattukara in Thrissur, were taken into custody. Naseema and her second husband Akbar Shah are absconding. The police say Shah is in Wayanad and will be seized soon.
The gang had hoped to grab the engineer's car and money in lakhs, but never knew he was in zero balance. The police said they could dig up the plot because the engineer opened up.