Bhopal Police have arrested a fifth accused in connection with the alleged rape, threatening and blackmailing of some Hindu girls by a group of Muslim boys that had reportedly been going on since 2017-18, but came to light a few days ago.

A team from the Ashoka Garden police station of Bhopal nabbed the absconding accused, Nabeel, from Patna in Bihar on Thursday.

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According to Bhopal DCP Zone-1, Priyanka Shukla, the police have taken Nabeel in remand till 6 May to interrogate him about the incident.

Till now, five victims have come forward and lodged FIRs in different police stations of Bhopal against the accused men.

According to police officials, there are six main accused in the cases, out of which five have been arrested. One accused, identified as Abrar Khan and said to be a resident of Muzzafarpur in Bihar, is still absconding and police teams are continuously trying to nab him too.

The five arrested accused include the alleged mastermind, Farhan Khan alias Faraz, who owns a restaurant, ‘Club 90’, near the private engineering college, ‘Technocrats Institute of Technology’, in Bhopal, where most of the accused and the victims studied together in the past. It is alleged that the accused men posed as Hindus and brought the victims to Farhan’s restaurant and subsequently trapped them.

The other arrested are Ali Khan, Sahil Khan, and Shamsuddin alias Saad. The men are also accused of recording obscene videos and then blackmailing the victims by threatening to make the videos viral.

According to Bhopal Commissioner of Police Harinarayan Chari Mishra, the accused have been booked under the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and also on charges of rape, blackmail, and threatening, along with other relevant sections.

Bhopal Zone-2 DCP Sanjay Agrawal said that the police are also investigating a possible ‘human trafficking’ angle, as investigations so far have pointed out that the accused might have been sending some of the victims and other girls to other people as well.

Meanwhile, Members of the ‘Sakal Hindu Samaj’ staged protests at various places in Bhopal on Friday, in protest against the alleged ‘Love Jihad’ cases.

The protests were held at 26 different places in the state capital, and local leaders and members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), along with activists of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal.

Several activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), BJP’s student wing, also staged a protest outside the Bhopal Collectorate and submitted a memorandum addressed to the Bhopal Collector, against ‘Love Jihad’.