A Bengaluru businessman with a PhD was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly creating a fake profile of the city police on Facebook. The Central Crime Branch’s assistant sub-inspector Bhojaraju had come across the profile in December 2019 and had registered a complaint with the Cyber Crime Police back then, media reports stated.
According to the Times of India, Panjak Kumar Bachhawat (40), a resident of Malleshwaram, had created the Facebook page with 21,000 followers but had not uploaded a single post on it. However, the members frequently uploaded posts.
Deccan Herald reported that the posts on this fake account were often offensive. According to Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sandeep Patil, it took the cybercrime sleuths close to eight months to track down Pankaj Kumar.
Pankaj allegedly became a part of the community policing initiative launched by the city police 20 years ago and was issued an identity card by the police, the DH report stated.
He allegedly told the Cyber Crime sleuths that he had no malicious intent in creating the Facebook page but only wanted to help the people. However, speaking to TNM, Sandeep Patil said that Pankaj Kumar had claimed to be a police officer on the fake page he had created. “Creating a fake page and claiming to be a police officer is clear grounds for impersonating a public servant. Although he did not post anything, members had put up hateful posts,” he added.
The police said that irrespective of the intention, no civilian can create social media profiles in the name of police and impersonate police officers. The Cyber Crime sleuths are currently questioning Pankaj Kumar.
According to the DH report, Pankaj allegedly requested the police to delete the page and let him go. However, the police arrested him and produced him before a magistrate. The court had remanded him to 14-day judicial custody.
The First Information Report (FIR) against Pankaj Kumar has been registered under section 170 (impersonating a public servant) of the Indian Penal Code and section 66 C and 66D (fake information or photo of some other person or stealing the identity of another person) of the Information Technology Act, the Cyber Crime Police said.