‘Jilted lover’ arrested for creating woman’s fake profile to post remarks hurting religious sentiments

According to the FIR filed Tuesday, the victim’s husband learnt about a fake social media profile operating in the name of his wife from which some messages had been posted with the “intention of inciting communal hatred”. The messages contained photographs of religious importance and vulgar messages attributed to the victim.

The victim’s husband registered an FIR at Shinor police station stating that his wife’s photograph and name have been used to create social media accounts and post messages “to hurt sentiments” of a particular community of people, in order to “cause trouble for the victim”.

The police investigation narrowed down on the accused, who had created the fake profiles, using technical intelligence. Once apprehended, the accused told the police that he had been pursuing the woman for a relationship before she married the complainant this year and he wanted to “avenge the rejection” by damaging the family’s reputation.

A senior police officer said, “The accused has claimed that he wanted revenge from the woman and her husband. Since they belong to the minority community, he thought it would be a good way to entangle them in a legal case by creating a fake profile and posting messages that could hurt religious sentiments and someone might take notice of it and book the family… However, the victim’s husband learnt of the same before the accused could succeed as the complainant’s sister, who is based in Anand, noticed the profile on social media. The accused had also used the photograph of the complainant’s sister (victim’s sister-in-law) in one of the posts.”

The FIR was initially registered against unknown persons for creating the fake profiles listed by the complainant in the FIR. However, the police have now arrested the accused under Indian Penal Code Sections 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups), 153B (punishment for making or publishing statements that promote disharmony or hatred between different groups), 505 (making a statement or rumour intending to cause a any officer to mutiny or to fail in his duty, or causing fear in public tranquility, or inciting one community against another).