Mumbai: The Maharashtra cyber has arrested a 29-year-old PhD student from Ahmednagar on Saturday for allegedly using a Twitter handle to post derogatory comments about women and people holding constitutional positions including the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra.
The police are questioning another 26-year-old in the same case, who is also a PhD student from the same university.
According to the police, the accused posted derogatory comments against a female journalist, an actress and also other women. The nature of the derogatory comments were related to the modesty of women.
While the tweets against the CM and the deputy CM were mainly defamatory comments against the political party.
According to the police, on October 14, the cyber cell received a complaint about an unidentified person using a specific Twitter handle to post the objectionable comments.
“The accused would use Wi-Fi-VPN (virtual private network) which makes it’s difficult to track the source of the tweets, which made him think that the police will not be able to catch him. While tracking his location, it was showing different IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, but we used various permutations and combinations and were able to narrow down to the suspect’s location,” said Supritendent of Police (SP), Sanjay Shintre, Maharashtra Cyber Crime, Mumbai.
After the technical analysis of the tweets, the location of the accused showed the Mahatma Phule Agricultural University at Rahuri in the state's Ahmednagar district.
Soon after, a cyber team went to Ahmednagar on Friday and conducted raids on some suspects on Saturday.
“Before detaining the two suspects we made sure that we had enough facts against the accused because they are PhD students and we did not want anyone’s life to get ruined simply,” added the official.
The cyber team detained two suspects and brought them to Mumbai for further investigation into the case. After further investigation, the police arrested the main accused in the case and seized two mobile phones and a laptop from him.
The police are also conducting an investigation to find out if more suspects are involved in the content creation of the posts. The seized gadgets have been sent to cyber forensic experts to investigate into the matter.
After the arrest, the accused was produced before a local court on Saturday which remanded him in police custody till November 2, added the police.“The accused would use Wi-Fi-VPN (virtual private network) which makes it’s difficult to track the source of the tweets, which made him think that the police will not be able to catch him. While tracking his location, it was showing different IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, but we used various permutations and combinations and were able to narrow down to the suspect’s location,” said Supritendent of Police (SP), Sanjay Shintre, Maharashtra Cyber Crime, Mumbai.
After the technical analysis of the tweets, the location of the accused showed the Mahatma Phule Agricultural University at Rahuri in the state's Ahmednagar district.
Soon after, a cyber team went to Ahmednagar on Friday and conducted raids on some suspects on Saturday.
“Before detaining the two suspects we made sure that we had enough facts against the accused because they are PhD students and we did not want anyone’s life to get ruined simply,” added the official.
The cyber team detained two suspects and brought them to Mumbai for further investigation into the case. After further investigation, the police arrested the main accused in the case and seized two mobile phones and a laptop from him.
The police are also conducting an investigation to find out if more suspects are involved in the content creation of the posts. The seized gadgets have been sent to cyber forensic experts to investigate into the matter.
After the arrest, the accused was produced before a local court on Saturday which remanded him in police custody till November 2, added the police.
