Mumbai:
A stockbroker in Mumbai and his relatives have been receiving obscene SMSes for the last 18 months.
Fed up of the torture, they lodged a complaint at Pant Nagar police station. With no arrests made, they complained to the Cyber cell of the Mumbai police. The case has now been transferred to the Crime Branch whose officials are just as clueless.
The Shahs did try changing their cellphone numbers but that was of little help. They continued getting the lewd text messages despite changing their numbers, said police sources.
Police officials, who did not wish to be named, said Shah and his family receive around 100 to 125 such abusive messages a day. "We are fed up of those vulgar messages," Shah told MiD DAY. "We thought a change of numbers would relieve us, but no such luck."
"My daughter is scared to step out of home, and is even reluctant to go to college," said Shah. "She feels threatened that this person might attack her."
"An unidentified person sends messages to the family stating that their daughter, wife, daughter-in-law and other relatives are prostitutes, have had sex with him," said a police source.
"When we did trace the number, we got to know that the SIM card had been procured using fake documents. The person whose documents have been submitted does not exist. So, we told the family to get in touch with the Cyber Cell," he added.
The case was subsequently transferred to the Crime Branch.
Now, the Crime Branch is trying to track the person sending the messages, through the IP address, but have not succeeded so far. The Crime Branch has been keeping vigil on agencies selling SIM cards without proper documents. Such cards are referred to as 'khacha' cards.
"There is a major racket of fake SIM cards in the market," said sources in the Crime Branch.
"Agents sell these SIM cards on the basis of fake documents. Such cards often land in wrong hands."
"The case has just been transferred to us. Our investigation process is still going on," said Police Inspector Sunil Kawdekar of Crime Branch (Unit VII). "The accused only uses the card to send text messages, not to call up. Tracking the sender of a text message is not as easy as zeroing in on a caller."