Man blackmails woman posing as director Ayan Mukerji, held

It was a Rangeela moment for a struggling actress trying to make inroads into Bollywood when an impersonator, calling himself Ayan Mukerji on facebook, not only accepted her friendship request on the social networking site but also started chatting online with her.

After chatting with her online, the impersonator started blackmailing her by threatening to leak the photographs she had sent him online. It was only after she confronted Bollywood director Ayan Mukerji over the same that she learnt the man from Dongri had made a fake profile in Ayan’s name on the site.

The Mumbai cyber police has now arrested the impostor Sahil alias Sahil Jethwa. “The starlet had met and confronted Mr Mukerji about the FB chats. Ayan denied saying he did not have a FB account,” said a senior officer from the cyber police station.

According to the officer, Mr Mukerji immediately approached the police with a complaint about someone impersonating him online and trying to extort money from people by blackmailing them.

“It started when the woman who sent a friendship request thinking the profile to be of the director was accepted by Sahil, the impersonator who created the profile. Sahil then started posing as Ayan and had several online chats with the woman. As the relationship grew and he won the woman’s confidence, he asked her to send pictures to him. Once she sent her pictures, he started blackmailing her that he would leak them on the internet,” the officer said.

Police investigations led to Sahil who has now been arrested. Sahil, who stayed in Dongri did odd jobs. “We have arrested him on Thursday and we will try to find out why he chose to impersonate Ayan specifically, and whether he was connected in the field and had extorted money from others as well using this modus operandi,” said the source.