CUTTACK: The Cyber Crime and Economic Offences police on Sunday arrested a 26-year-old man for allegedly creating a fake Instagram account of a minor girl and uploading her as well as her younger sister and mother’s morphed pictures on it.
The accused, Dinesh Kumar Sethi alias Babu of Pattamundai in Kendrapara, is a plumber by profession. Police said, the victim, a minor girl studying Plus II in a college, lodged a complaint on April 18 alleging that an unknown person had created a fake Instagram ID using her photographs, and was abusing her using obscene language on social media.
As per the complainant, the accused had contacted her younger sister over phone and WhatsApp where he allegedly issued threats, used abusive language, and attempted to blackmail her by asking for money. When he failed to do so, the accused reportedly circulated morphed photographs of the victim, her mother and her sister on social media, thereby causing severe mental distress and damaging the family’s social reputation, police said.
Acting on the FIR, a case was registered under section 75/78(2)/79/351(2)/294/319(2)/111(4)/356(2)/296(b) BNS R/W section 66(C)/66(D)/67/67(B) IT ACT R/W section 11(i)/11(v)/12 POCSO Act and investigation was undertaken by forming a special team.
During probe, the technical data obtained from Instagram was analysed and the accused was identified and arrested from Pattamundai.
Police said Sethi is a habitual offender. He was earlier arrested twice by Cyber Crime police on November 3, 2022 and July 27, 2023 for committing similar types of offences where he created fake social media IDs of two minor girls’ and posted their morphed photos.
A senior police officer said Sethi followed the Instagram accounts of girls who had public IDs and then chatted with them, eventually collecting their personal contact number.
“The accused then saved their uploaded photos in his phone. After editing the photos, he posted them on the fake IDs opened by him in the names of the girls, and demanded money from the victims to delete the pictures,” police said.
