Palanpur: A college student from Gujarat’s Banaskantha district was allegedly repeatedly raped by seven persons for nearly 16 months after being blackmailed with her nude video, police said Wednesday. One of the six accused befriended the 20-year-old woman over Instagram months after she started attending a college in Palanpur in 2023.

In November 2023, he persuaded her to join him for breakfast at a hotel. He deliberately spilled food on her dress and took her to a room on the pretext of cleaning it, as per the FIR. Police said when the student removed her clothes in the bathroom, the accused, identified as Vishal Chaudhary, barged inside and filmed her. When she protested, he threatened to make the video public and post it on Instagram, said the first information report (FIR), which was registered on Monday.

Using the same clip, he forced the student to have physical relations with him and his friends at different places on different occasions between November 2023 and February 2025, stated the FIR. After the woman approached the Palanpur taluka police, a case was registered against six identified and an unknown person under sections concerning repeated rape and criminal intimidation of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

The accused have also been booked under section 67 of the Information Technology Act concerning the publication or transmission of obscene material in electronic form. Efforts are being made to nab the accused persons, said an official from Palanpur taluka police station.