Gujarat man impersonates Mumbai-based sister-in-law on Facebook; held

The officers at the Cyber police station at Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) arrested a 35-year-old Rajkot-based businessman on Saturday for allegedly defaming his sister-in-law by hacking into her Facebook profile. He is believed to have then created a fake account and impersonated her to chat with her friends using vulgar and objectionable language. The police investigation revealed that the incident occurred due to a family dispute and the accused was harbouring spite against his mother for favouring his sister-in-law over his wife.

Picture for representation

The 35-year-old victim lives with her husband in Andheri. Her husband's brother, the accused, his wife and mother-in-law are residents of Rajkot, Gujarat. Last December, the victim approached the Cyber police station and in her complaint. Using the hacked account and another fake one he created in her name, the accused was defaming her. Following the complaint, Deputy Commissioner of police (Cyber crime), M Rajkumar put inspector Ravi Sardesai and assistant inspector Sandeep Bhand on the job to trace the accused. By obtaining IP address details from the service provider, the investigators traced the accused to Rajkot. The suspect, who turned out to be the victim's brother-in-law was brought to Mumbai and arrested on Saturday.

Police said investigations have revealed that the accused's wife and her sister-in-law did not share a good relationship and were often bickering. Their mother-in-law favoured the victim, leaving the accused's wife furious. The accused confessed that he hacked into her e-mail account (registered with Facebook as log-in ID) using the password recovery option and operated her Facebook profile. He also created a fake profile, using pictures he had stored of her on his cell phone. "This continued for the period October-December, 2015," said assistant inspector Bhand. The victim learnt of this when her friends inquired why she was behaving out of character. The police have booked the accused under relevant sections.