Hyderabad: Techie arrested for creating fake profile of woman on FB

Hyderabad: An engineering graduate who allegedly harassed a woman by creating her fake profiles on Facebook and by posting obscene content was arrested by police on Saturday. The techie, N. Sai Shantan, took to social media after the girl rejected his marriage proposal. He used the Net to trouble other girls also, police said.

Police said that Sai Shantan created 12 fake profiles in the girl’s name. “He posted her image on the profiles and shared objectionable photos and videos describing her as a call girl. He also posted her mobile number on the Facebook pages.

Police said Shantan and the victim were close friends when they did Intermediate. He had clicked many photos and videos of her using a hidden camera. When he proposed to her first, she sought time.

Later, the two shifted to different places for higher studies. In 2015, he approached her again with the same proposal. She turned it down and started avoiding him.

“When the Facebook posts became an issue, the victim’s family suspected him, but he behaved as if he knew nothing of it, and even promised the family to identify the culprit behind the postings. At the same time, he kept sending her text messages threatening her and demanding that she should change her mind and marry him,” said a police official from Cyberabad.

A month ago, the victim approached the cops, seeking their help to deactivate all the fake profiles in her name, and to delete all the posts. The profiles were deactivated, but Shantan allegedly created three new profiles and continued harassing her.

Police arrested Shantan and seized his laptop, a mobile phone and a pen-drive. During investigation, police found that he sent ‘friend’ requests to many of her friends from the fake accounts.

“After retrieving the data from his phone and laptop, we found that he lured other girls in his college in the same way and blackmailed them too,” police said. Shantan has been sent to judicial remand.