A 41-year-old man who impersonated a police officer and allegedly called and threatened to kill social activist Shabnam Hashmi ‘in an encounter’ was arrested on Wednesday from Ghaziabad.
Harender Malik, a native of Uttar Pradesh and a resident of Loni, allegedly told the police that it was one of the many random calls he has made.
Harender allegedly told Ms. Hashmi that he was a Sub Inspector at the Lajpat Nagar police station and would ‘kill her in an encounter’.
He allegedly went on to claim that the government had passed a ‘ ghero aur maaro (surround and kill)’ law for all those who didn’t have an Aadhaar card.
Ms. Hashmi told the police that the man verbally abused her and sounded drunk.
“He has a tendency to call random mobile numbers and if the call is attended by a woman, then he would use obscene and vulgar language. When he faced resistance from his victims, he would threaten them by posing as a police officer,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (South East) Romil Baaniya.
The phone used for the call has been recovered.
A case under Sections 419 (Punishment for cheating by personation), 506 (Punishment for criminal intimidation) and 509 (Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the IPC has been registered.
Reports about a ‘cop’ threatening the social activist had gone viral on social media and the Delhi Police was widely slammed for the incident. “An inspector of @DelhiPolice has the guts to openly threaten Shabnam Hashmi that he will kill anyone w/o aadhar No.!” tweeted lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan, a day after the incident was reported.
Man had called before
Ms. Hashmi, meanwhile, said that the man had earlier threatened one of her employees working at Mubina, an NGO. When the employee told Ms. Hashmi about receiving threats from a cop, the social activist asked for the number from which the calls were coming.
Ms. Hashmi then called up the number, which was picked up by Harender, who proceeded to make the death threats.
Harender, who is not married and suffers from polio, worked as a repairman for knitting machines.
