A few city residents learned an important lesson about social media recently after the Maradu police began investigation into a complaint they received.
The complaint was filed by a renowned city-based Malayalam film writer. Someone allegedly created a Facebook page under his name and was using his celebrity status to hit on women.
The culprit hailed from the scriptwriter’s hometown and used his knowledge of the writer’s films to regularly accept fans’ congratulatory messages and criticisms of his work.
“He befriended lots of film, business, and political personalities over Facebook. But his main objective was to chat up women,” said a police officer.
The man allegedly used the scriptwriter’s name to chat with women over the website. The entire con came to light after one woman from Vyttila became suspicious of the man running the Facebook profile.
Using contacts in the film industry, the vigilant housewife managed to contact the scriptwriter, who promptly told her that he was not on Facebook. The scriptwriter then arrived at the police station to file a complaint.
With some help from the woman, police managed to lure the fake writer to a specific location and then detained him.
The real story soon came tumbling out.
The police, however, could not register a case in the matter as the complainant didn’t want to make an issue.
Seedy business
Making arrests for possession of drugs are a routine affair for the city police. But police officers at Maradu were somewhat surprised during an arrest recently.
Police recovered several packets of ganja, drug ampoules and pills, and syringes used to take heavy narcotics from a 27-year-old in the city recently. Among the objects seized, however, was a small packet containing ganja seeds. Police suspect that the accused obtained the seeds from the same dealers from whom the ganja was sourced.
Officials were not worried, however, that the accused may have been planning to cultivate ganja on his own rather than buying the substance outside. “He probably got the seeds just out of curiosity. Dealers handle ganja so frequently that it becomes a part of their life. He may have wanted to see if it was possible to grow the stuff here for his own use,” said an officer.
