The Crime Branch on Thursday arrested a 23-year-old youth for uploading objectionable pictures of his former girlfriend whom he had been pressurising for marriage for quite sometime.
Gautam Pandit, a native of Balasore’s Soro, was arrested by a team of the Cyber Crime Police Station from Rourkela where he is currently employed. He has been charged with stalking, circulation of obscene pictures, forgery, criminal intimidation and acts that insult the modesty of a woman. He was produced before the SDJM, Balasore later in the day.
Sources in the Crime Branch said Pandit had apparently an affair with the girl who later broke up with him. However, the youth did not relent and kept pressurising her for marriage. He even issued threats. Later, he allegedly created a fake Facebook ID of the girl and uploaded objectionable pictures by morphing them. When the girl’s family lodged a complaint with the local police, the youth tendered an unconditional apology and vowed not to repeat the mistake.
However, instead of mending his ways, Pandit kept harassing the girl and posted morphed pictures to tarnish her reputation. When the matter was brought to Cyber Police Station, a case was registered and he was arrested. Pandit has been booked under Sections 292/ 354D/465/469/506/509 of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 66-A/66-C/67 of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008.
Such instances of cyber crime have been on the rise and Crime Branch has detected at least five cases of posting of morphed pictures on various websites and social networking sites this year alone. School and Mass Education Minister Rabi Narayan Nanda too had become a victim when an ITI graduate of Jeypore posted his morphed pictures on the internet.
“Although we have been receiving complaints and acting on them, many victims still are not turning up. We would like them to use the help of Cyber Police Station which has technical expertise to track down the perpetrators,” Additional Director General of Crime Branch BK Sharma said.