The Bandra unit of Mumbai crime branch has arrested a 29-year-old person for allegedly harassing random women by sending obscene pictures to them on their WhatsApp. The accused has been identified as Mohammad Irfan Shaikh.
On November 19-20, a married woman from Andheri who works at a call centre received at least 11 obscene photographs and messages on her WhatsApp. The woman blocked the number before approaching the Amboli police. Following the complaint an offence was registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) section for sexual harassment (354A) and under the relevant sections of Information Technology act.
The crime branch unit 9 began their parallel probe and soon traced the accused to Jangaon in Telangana from where he was later arrested. The accused works for a ladies garment shop which puts garment stall at various fairs across the country. "Due to his job profile the accused was continuously on the move from one state to another. He is originally from Varanasi, while he procured the SIM card from Gulbarga in Karnataka, due to which police could never reached to him," said Nandakumar Gopale, senior inspector of crime branch unit 9.
While working for a garment dealer, the accused used to note down the numbers of those people who called their stall for inquiry. First he used to check their display picture on their WhatsApp and after finding a woman's photo on the DP he used to harrass them by bombarding them with obscene pictures and messages, added a crime branch officer.
During questioning, Shaikh has confessed of harassing several other women similarly. We have found several women numbers from his WhatsApp chats who had been harassed by Shaikh, said a crime branch officer. We are appealing to women to approach either crime branch or to police station nearby in case they had been harasses by him.
Shaikh was later handed over to Amboli police for further investigation.
