Friday, 14 October 2022 | PNS | HARIDWAR
A police complaint has been filed regarding an attempt to defraud citizens using a WhatsApp account with the profile picture of the Haridwar district magistrate Vinay Shankar Pandey. In another case, three persons from Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh were arrested for impersonating the district’s superintendent of police (crime) Himanshu Verma on Twitter and seeking money from people.
In the complaint lodged on behalf of Verma, it was stated that a person had informed him on his Twitter handle that someone is operating a Twitter handle using his photo and demanding money from people.
According to the police, three accused were nabbed from Bijnor in the case. They were identified as Naved Salim, Vikas Kumar and Anshit Vishnoi.
During interrogation, they said that they got marriage advertisements printed in the newspaper every Thursday. They get people who call them to deposit money for registration. They used to say that they would visit the house of the client after two days to confirm the match but when they were called back they would claim that a milkman had died in an accident with their car. Claiming that they were trying to reach a settlement and were in a police station, they used a photo of a police officer with the SIM activated by them and linked to the fake Twitter handle. The person they called used to believe they were cops and agree to their demand for money.
In another case, the Haridwar DM’s assistant Sudesh Kumar has submitted a complaint to the police stating that somebody using Pandey’s photo on a WhatsApp account had sought Rs 5,000 each from 20 persons. A case has been registered against the accused at SIIDCUL police station. The police have started the investigation and are tracing the said number with the culprits expected to be arrested soon.
