PATNA: Bihar police arrest a youth on Friday for opening a fake Instagram account on behalf of former PM Manmohan Singh and collected donations.
Attempting to take undue advantage of growing political acrimony between the BJP and Congress leaders, a 22-year-old identified as Someshwar Singh pursuing higher studies to become a soil scientist from Dun Business College in Dehradun, tried his best to dupe the people through a fake Instagram account.
The police in Bihar arrested him on Friday within 24 hours of case being reported to DGP Gupteshwar Pandey from intelligence source. The accused had been seeking donations through digital payment through Paytm linked with the fake Instagram profile account.
The reason stated for seeking donation was even more baffling. He has stated on the fake profile account: "You need to know why we need you to donate us. The BJP use his money power to ruin the image of our former PM. They sharing morphed images, edited videos, and fake Youtube analysts. For
countering them, we need huge team of content creator, web- designers, video editor and anchors for Youtube. For this we need you to donate us". (Taken as it is from the account post)
This fake Instagram profile made in the name of Dr Singh's office had more than 90000 followers.
Confirming this, ADG (HQ) of Bihar Police Jitendra Kumar said that the cyber-cell of Bihar police started investigation just after DGP Gupteshwar Pandey got an input on such fake Instagram profile account made in the name of Dr Manmohan Singh office.
The ADG further said that the QRT of a Paytm account for receiving digital payment of donation was also being operated by Somu Kumar, another accused and linked with a bank account, opened in the name of Someshwar Singh in the Kotak Mahindra Bank at Bhagwanpur branch in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar.
“When the cyber cell started investigating into this, it got a mobile number-8210039492, issued in the name of a woman Poonam Kumari of Muzaffarpur district. The nodal officer of Paytm disclosed to the police that a youth named Somu Kumar has been suing the number," Kumar said.
"The cyber cell informed the Muzaffarpur SSP Jaykant, who immediately formed a special team that arrested Somehwar Singh of Sheohar district, living at Baraya in Muzaffarpur," the ADG said.
The entire case was cracked within 24 hours after being informed by an intelligence source to DGP. The police team recovered one mobile phone with 2 sim cards from the possession of Singh.
"The number 8210039492 was used in the creation of fake Instagram profile with another number of 8375835574," he said.