Man creates fake 'sex chat' profiles after losing housing society poll

Alpesh Parekh

Stung after losing a housing society election, a resident created fake 'sex chat' profiles of three neighbours, one man and two women, on a classifieds website. One of the victims of the housing society in Malad west approached the police last month after repeatedly getting calls of an obscene nature from random numbers. The police identified and arrested the perpetrator, Alpesh Parekh, 47, on Friday.

'Aggressive man'

One of the complainants, a 36-year-old woman told mid-day, "This man is very aggressive, which is why he is disliked by everyone in the society. I am new member and people like me, so they asked me to contest the elections. While I was elected as a committee member, he didn't get any votes. He targeted me as I was elected to the post and because I'm friends with an old tenant he disliked." The elections were held on April 15 and its results were declared the same day.

She added, "I started getting the calls on April 17 and on April 19, I approached the police to lodge an FIR. I'd received around 100 calls. The callers not only demanded obscene things, but also started sending me vulgar messages and videos on WhatsApp." The website where her fake profile had been created is a site for classifieds called Locanto. The complainant was able to get the profile from one of the callers. Locanto is the same site from where a 65-year-old man was lured into parting with Rs 46 lakh for dating a young woman, as reported by mid-day on April 1 in '65-yr-old loses Rs 46L in 3 days on 'dating site''.

Also Read: Mumbai crime: Jilted girl puts ex's family on Facebook for 'sex talk', held

'Violent' secretary

The other complainant, a 49-year-old woman, told mid-day, "Parekh is very violent. In 2017, when he was the secretary of the society, he assaulted a senior citizen. After that, around 32 people wrote to the police against him. He was then removed from the committee. He used to come to the society in a drunken state and fight with anyone for any reason." This victim got around 50 calls and over 25 text messages because of the fake profile.

"I was really depressed because of the calls. We continued to get them even after lodging an FIR. We asked cops to delete our profiles before proceeding with the investigations. Once that happened, we stopped getting calls," she added.

Also Read: Mumbai: Man engages in matrimonial fraud, posting obscene pics of woman online

Teaching them a lesson

A police officer said, "All three profiles we found were of people from the same housing society. We were quite sure about the accused being from the same society who knew the victims." With help of the cyber crime department, cops traced the profiles to Parekh, who runs a transport clearing business. Chimaji Adhav, senior inspector, crime branch, said, "The accused was unhappy after being defeated in the society elections, which is why he committed this crime." Parekh admitted to cops that he was displeased with the results and had created the profiles to teach the members a lesson. Akbar Pathan, DCP, detection, said, "The accused has been arrested under Section 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 66 (C) and 67 of the Information Technology Act."

Also Read: Mira Road's BJP MLA Narendra Mehta complains about fake Facebook profile

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