HYDERABAD:His weapons were a smartphone, a Wi-Fi connection and a few fake accounts in Facebook. Using these, he coaxed about 80 girls in their teens to send their nude photographs. In one such instance he even succeeded in extracting money from one of the victims after blackmailing her family.
The 21-year-old Abdul Majid, a B.Tech (Computer Science) student from Bholanagar, after failing miserably to befriend girls online using his own identity, developed skills to think and talk like a girl. He then operated six fake accounts on Facebook, posing as a girl, and had approached over 200 girls from international schools and upmarket educational institutions here in a period spanning over a year and a half. The cyber crime police of Cyberabad arrested Majid recently after a parent of one of the victims approached them for help.
Cyberabad Police commissioner C V Anand said Majid, after sending friend requests from his fake accounts, would then lure the victims through chatting. “Most girls accepted the friend request thinking it was a girl. And he would then build up the conversation with the victims and start chatting about sexual encounters. He would ask if they had such experiences. If they start chatting explicitly, he would take screenshots of the conversation and tell them that he would upload the same on their Facebook wall. He would then ask for nude photos, and if the victim refused, he would threaten to send the chat history to their parents,” said Anand.
The student, in his third year, managed to evade the law, as none of the victims approached the police in the last 18 months. During interrogation, he told the police that he had tried to befriend girls through his original Facebook account but failed miserably. He said he used Wi-Fi signals from an office near his father’s betel shop and used his smartphone.
The investigators are on the pursuit of finding out if Majid sought and succeeded in gaining sexual and personal favours. Assistant Commissioner of Police, Cyber Crime, S Jayaram said Majid was a ‘pervert’ who carried out these criminal activities secretly. “His uneducated father did not monitor his activities whereas his elder brothers, who are working as engineers, did not have time for him. Initially, he started the act of chatting up with girls online for fun, but subsequently started enjoying the scare he was spreading on his victims and families,” said the ACP, adding, “He could have done anything, could have sought any favours. We are trying to log into all his accounts and find out the entire chat history to know all his transactions. We are yet to know the extent of money transactions involved.”