NEW DELHI: A 24-year-old man was arrested for allegedly harassing several women online by threatening to throw acid on them and making their “objectionable” videos viral if they did not meet him, police said on Tuesday. The accused, Aman Yadav set up a fake Instagram account about a year and a half ago and had around 1100 followers, the majority of whom were women, they claimed.
The matter came to light after a woman, a resident of Farsh Bazaar, lodged a police complaint. According to the police, she claimed that on November 27, she was threatened on her Instagram chat by a user named anshikasharma188 that acid would be thrown on her and her videos would go viral.
According to R Sathiyasundaram, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Shahdara), the IP address of the Instagram page (@anshikasharma188) and some call records were examined. The page was being allegedly operated by Yadav, he said.
Police conducted a raid and Yadav was arrested from Subhash Nagar. “During the investigation, we discovered that Yadav had created a fake ID —Anshikasharma188 — on Instagram around one and a half years ago and had since chatted with various victims,” officer said.
“At first, he followed the profiles of random beautiful women and then sent them messages. When any woman responded to his message, he would threaten the victim with making their objectionable videos viral and throw acid attack on them,” Sathiyasundaram said.
“Out of fear, many women met with him and accused him of doing this act just to meet the women,” he said. Police said they have recovered the mobile phone and SIM card used in the commission of the crime.