Delhi: Man held for harassing woman by creating fake social media accounts

 New Delhi: A man has been arrested for allegedly harassing and stalking his colleague by creating her fake social media accounts and sending defamatory messages to her relatives and friends, police said on Monday.

The accused, Sourav Thakur(47), was allegedly in a relationship with the woman. When she started ignoring him, the accused created the fake profiles and harassed her, they said.

The woman reported the matter to the police on February 9.

In her complaint, she alleged that someone was harassing her by sending defamatory messages to her relatives and friends through a fake Facebook ID. She also alleged that the accused was sending vulgar remarks on social media, police said.

A case under section 354 (D) for stalking and 509 (Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code was registered and various social media accounts of suspect were put on surveillance, said Esha Pandey, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast).

”During investigation, the IP address of the fake Facebook profile was obtained. The obtained IP address was found to be a match with the actual Facebook ID of the accused. ”Both the IDs were thoroughly analyzed and it came into notice that the suspect was using same IPs for operating his own Facebook ID as well as fake Facebook ID,” the officer said.

Thakur was identified, a team raided his residence and apprehended him, he said. ”During interrogation, Thakur disclosed that he was in relationship with the victim for more than 10 years. They were working in an advertising company and were in a relationship. After some time the victim started to avoid him.

”To retaliate, he started following her to know whom she was meeting by putting a GPS tracker in her car. Later on, he created fake Facebook and Instagram profiles in her name and sent defamatory messages to her relatives and friends to teach a lesson to her,” the officer added.

Two mobile phones, a Apple MacBook and a wi-fi router have been recovered from his possession, she said.