Threat to Virat Kohli’s daughter: IITian held from Hyderabad

Cops say Ramanagesh Akubathini masked all his accounts after his post pretending to be a Pakistani went viral

The Cyber Cell of Mumbai Crime Branch on Wednesday arrested a 23-year-old IITian from Sangareddy in Hyderabad for allegedly giving rape threats to Indian cricket team skipper Virat Kohli’s daughter on Twitter. Police said, the accused, Ramanagesh Srinivas Akubathini had masked his social media accounts including the Twitter handle to avoid being traced.

The Twitter handle used to post the threat also sported a picture of the Pakistan cricket team, in a bid to throw off police by pretending to be a Pakistani. The accused, who worked with a food  delivery app and is currently pursuing post graduation from IIT, allegedly posted the rape threats directed at Kohli’s daughter after the skipper issued a statement supporting bowler Mohammed Sami, who was being trolled on social media platforms after India lost the match against Pakistan in T20 World Cup. 

The accused had deleted the account after the tweet went viral. Representation pic

As the tweet went viral, the Cyber Cell received a complaint from Kohli through his manager. The Cyber Cell then formed a team to probe the issue and traced the accused to Hyderabad. A team supervised by Rashmi Karandikar then went to Hyderabad and nabbed the accused. “Based on a complaint we registered an FIR and arrested the accused from Hyderabad with the help of technical evidence. The accused had masked all his social media accounts to hide his identity but we managed to track him,” said Rashmi Karandikar, DCP cyber. 

Another officer said, “Since he is an IITian, he took all precautions to hide his real identity and deleted his account after his tweet went viral.” Mumbai Cyber said Delhi Cyber Crime Centre Deputy Director Deepak Viramane gave a lot of technical support to nab the culprit.  The accused, booked under relevant sections of the IPC and the IT Act, is being brought to Mumbai and will be produced in a court today.

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