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Ludhiana: Stalker arrested for making extortion calls to BJP women leaders
The accused had demanded extortion money from vice president of BJP Mahila Morcha Manisha Sood of Khanna, BJP counselor from Ludhiana Rashi Aggarwal and a woman leader in Moga by sending them a QR code on WhatsApp to transfer money
The Khanna police on Monday arrested a man for allegedly making extortion calls to BJP women leaders by sending them the QR code of the brother of a woman he was stalking, in a bid to implicate the latter in the case.
The accused had demanded extortion money from vice president of BJP Mahila Morcha Manisha Sood of Khanna, BJP counselor from Ludhiana Rashi Aggarwal and a woman leader in Moga by sending them a QR code on WhatsApp to transfer money.
The accused had hatched a conspiracy to implicate the brother of the woman he was stalking and had sent the QR code of her brother to the BJP women leaders.
The accused has been identified as Rajnish Sharma of New Shivpuri road, Preet Nagar of Ludhiana. He already has five FIRs registered against him at Daresi and Jodhewal police stations in 2019 by the family of the woman.
Senior superintendent of police (SSP, Khanna) Amneet Kondal said that following a complaint made by Sood, the police lodged an FIR against unidentified accused.
Tracing the QR code the police reached the brother of the woman, who suspected that Rajnish could have hatched some conspiracy to implicate him following which the police started zeroing in on Rajnish and arrested him, he said.
The police found that the accused had procured a mobile connection using fake identification proofs.
The SSP added that the police are investigating to know why he made calls to only BJP women leaders and how he managed to get their contact numbers.
The accused had allegedly copied pictures of the woman he was stalking, who also belongs to Ludhiana, from social networking sites and morphed it. The accused forced her to establish physical relations with her and when she denied, the accused had uploaded her morphed pictures on social media.
The accused had created her fake profiles on social media sites Facebook, Snapchat and other platforms, and uploaded her morphed pictures with lewd comments on it. She had lodged an FIR against the accused on June 7, 2019. He was arrested, however, within days of coming out on bail.
After coming out on bail, the accused again started harassing her following which she filed a complaint to the commissioner of police on July 5, 2019. After that, the accused morphed her pictures with him as a couple and released advertisements in various newspapers in the marriage anniversary column.
After an enquiry of cyber cell, the police had booked him again in December 2019, under sections 354-D, 503 (criminal intimidation), 509 (Word, Gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 384 (Punishment of extortion), 511 (Attempt to commit an offence) of the IPC, and IT Act.
