Four booked for threatening ex-corporator on Facebook

According to the Borivali police, Shivanand Shetty , a resident of Vajira Naka in Borivali West, had approached them on Monday alleging that someone had made a Facebook page by the name ‘FunsukhVangdu’ and posted his morphed photos and threats to shoot him

MUMBAI: Four unidentified people have been booked for allegedly issuing death threats to former corporator Shivanand Shetty through Facebook posts.

Shivanand Shetty (HT Photo)

According to the Borivali police, Shetty, a resident of Vajira Naka in Borivali West, had approached them on Monday alleging that someone had made a Facebook page by the name ‘FunsukhVangdu’ and posted his morphed photos and threats to shoot him.

“The text in the posts were addressing Shetty as Kaalia and Raavan and spoke of a pistol arriving in Borivali to kill him,” a police officer said.

Shetty, who was a corporator from 2012 to 2022, said that in April 2022, the profiles in the name of Sandeep Shinde and Lalit Sawant were posting defaming content against him.

“On February 24, 2023, I saw two more profiles—Dharmesh Jadhav and Pooja Makwana—who posted defaming and derogatory content about him,” Shetty said, adding that on March 23, 2023, the page was created, and all the four accused had posted obscene content against him.

On Sunday, the wall of the page was filled with threats: “Kaalia aur Raavan ko maarne ke liye, desi katta Gorai mein aa Gaya hai (a country made pistol has arrived in Gorai to kill the Kaalia-Raavan).”

“Shetty registered an FIR against the four based on URL IDs that he had got from the Facebook page,” said the officer.

Based on the statement given by Shetty, the police have booked the accused for criminal intimidation and under relevant sections of the Information Technology Act. “We are verifying the allegations and trying to trace the four accused,” added the officer.