Pune: Chikhali police have arrested a 19-year-old boy on charges of impersonating and duping a woman doctor by obtaining and recharging her inactive SIM card and collecting money from her friends and relatives after sending them messages on Whatsapp.
The suspect has been identified as Vishwanath alias Shubham alias Hitesh Rajkumar Hava (19), a resident of Latur. He was picked up from Rahatni at Kalewadi area after police traced the location of the SIM card.
A complaint has been filed in this regard at Chikhali police station by Dr Utkarsha Dhananjay Chitale (25), a resident of Panchwati Society, Sharad Nagar in Chikhali. Based on her complaint, Hitesh has been booked under sections 417 (punishment for cheating), 419 (punishment for cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of Indian Penal Code and section 66C (punishment for identity theft) of the Information Technology Act.
According to the complaint filed, Dr Utkarsha was using an Airtel mobile number since last eight to ten years. She did not recharge it for the last six months and hence it was inactive. The number was allocated to another customer by the company.
The suspect started using the number and came to know about Dr Utkarsha using it previously. He then pretended to be her and also put up a display picture on the whatsapp messenger mobile application in order to convince her contacts that she was using the number.
The suspect then started sending whatsapp messages to her contacts and demanded money citing some problems or excuse. He asked Dr Utkarsha’s contacts to send money through Google Pay on a particular mobile number. So far he has fraudulently received Rs 56 thousand from different persons by impersonating Dr Utkarsha.
When the complainant got to know about someone demanding money in her name, she approached Chikhali police and filed a complaint. Police Sub-Inspector Badhe and Police Constable Kabir Pinjari traced the location of the SIM in Rahatni and nabbed Hitesh.