Three engineers arrested for hate mail against former employer

The action came after managing director of Microverse Automation Private Limited complained to the cyber cell. Police arrested Saurabh Dhurandhar,Arvind Chauhan and Prabhatkumar Singh. They were released on bail.

All the five were booked under Section 501 (printing defamatory matter) and Section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code,and Section 66 A (sending offensive information by e-mail) of the Information Technology Act.

Mehendale said the five had worked with the company for around three years. “We are an established instrumentation company… We also worked with the Department of Atomic Energy on an important project. It was only during recession that we faced some problems due to which there were problems in releasing salaries on time. Most companies faced similar problems.”

“If the suspects had any grievances,there were legitimate ways like approaching the labour court. But they conspired and formed two email accounts with a domain name that resembled the company’s name. Then they sent defamatory information about the company through these emails to all our customers,suppliers as well as present and past employees,between January 16 and February 9 this year,” he said.

“The mails mentioned that our company was involved in malpractice,produced poor quality products and treated employees shabbily. It created serious complications among employees and customers in India and abroad. We lost some good orders,causing huge financial loss. So I approached police,” he said.

“Shockingly,some emails were sent by Saurabh,who left our company five years ago because of an offer from another company. He never had any grievance about salary,” he said.

Mehendale initially filed a complaint with the city police cyber cell. The case was later transferred to Kothrud police. Investigation officer and police inspector Vilas Narnavar said,“From the IP address,we traced two defamatory emails so far sent by the suspects,which were strong evidence for their arrest.”