Bengaluru:

A Bengaluru teacher has been arrested on charges of blackmail and extorting money from a student’s parent with whom she had been having an affair.

The Central Crime Branch arrested 25-year-old Sridevi Rudagi and two others – Ganesh Kale, 38, and Sagar, 28 – for allegedly extorting Rs 4 lakh from Satish (name changed) and then blackmailing him, with photos and videos of their encounters, for a further Rs 20 lakh.

According to the police, Satish, a trader living in a western Bengaluru neighbourhood with his wife and three daughters, had enrolled his youngest, a five-year-old, in the school in 2023.

He met Rudagi during the admission process and, according to him, she kept in touch, and they began exchanging messages and video calls on a separate SIM card and phone.

Eventually their meetings turned personal.

Rudagi then extorted Rs 4 lakh from the father.

Then, in January, she demanded Rs 15 lakh.

As the father hesitated, she visited his home on the pretext of borrowing Rs 50,000.

Later, as his business suffered setbacks, the father made a difficult decision – to relocate his family to Gujarat. And he needed the child’s Transfer Certificate.

This was in early March, when the nightmare broke.

According to the father, on reaching the school, he found himself cornered in Rudagi’s office, with Kale and Sagar also present. The latter showed the father the private photographs and videos, and then demanded Rs 20 lakh or these would be sent to his family.

The father said he tried to reason with them and negotiated a payment of Rs 15 lakh, with an initial transfer of Rs 1.9 lakh. But the demands continued.

On March 17, Rudagi called him on the phone to remind him of the payment – Rs 5 lakh for a former police officer and Rs 1 lakh each for Sagar and Kale, and the remaining Rs 8 lakh for her.

Satish then called the police, who quickly established the police officer had no connection. Rudagi, Sagar, and Kale were arrested and sent to judicial custody for 14 days.