Man creates fake Facebook profile, held

A 31-year-old man from Dadar area of Central Mumbai has been arrested for allegedly using the photograph of a 22-year-old married woman to create a fake Facebook profile.

The man, a bachelor, had befriended the woman on WhatsApp, a mobile application and then used her WhatsApp photo to create her fake FB profile without her knowledge.

He told the police that he created the profile after falling in love with her. The cyber cell has not found the fake profile to have any obscene or vulgar comments.

The 31-year-old accused after completing his SSC dropped out of college and presently works for a cellphone company. He got the mobile number of the woman from one of the WhatsApp groups and started calling her. He lied to her that he had dialled the mobile number of a friend and by mistake had called her, the police said. After this he started sending her regular messages and they communicated on WhatsApp for around a month.

The woman thought of him as a friend. The accused knew that she is married and her husband is in a foreign country.

He then took her photograph from WhatsApp and used it to create her fake profile with a fake name. It is not clear exactly when he created her profile. After an unknown period of time, the woman’s uncle saw the fake profile in the friend suggestion list of his Facebook page and was shocked when the victim told him that she does not have any such profile.

The woman then approached the Cyber Cell of the Mumbai Police crime branch at BKC and lodged an FIR under Section 66C (punishment for identity theft) of IT Act on August 28 last year. The accused was arrested a few days ago and the woman was shocked to know he was behind the crime.