Creating a fake profile and flirting with girls proved costly for a city-based businessman who was allegedly abducted and robbed by a group of eight persons posing as Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths.
Based on a complaint, the CCB officials nabbed three of the eight accused and efforts are on to track down the remaining.
The victim, Shyam Kumar, a resident of Nagarabhavi, married and having two children, had created a fake profile on Facebook claiming to be an engineering student and used to flirt with girls by procuring their mobile phone numbers.
Using similar modus operandi , Shyam Kumar contacted a girl and allegedly used to harass her.
Unable to bear his harassment, the girl complained to her family. Enraged by this, her family members, decided to teach him a lesson and opened a fake profile in the name of a girl and approached him.
After chatting for a few days, the accused, posing as a girl, asked Shyam Kumar to come for a meeting near a temple in Hanumanth Nagar last Thursday.
When Shyam Kumar came to the designated place, the accused confronted him posing as CCB sleuths and threatened to arrest him since a case has been registered against him for cheating the girl.
When Shyam Kumar pleaded with them to let him go, the accused demanded Rs. 2 lakh for his release and later snatched Rs. 70,000 and a mobile phone from him. The accused threatened him with dire consequences and escaped.
Suspecting something fishy, Shyam Kumar approached the police and filed a complaint the next day. Based on the complaint, the CCB officials tracked down the accused through the Facebook account and managed to arrest Kumar (27), Kishore (21) and Puneetha (27) from Hanumanth Nagar and recovered Rs. 27,500 from them.
Upon verification, the CCB sleuths have found that Shyam Kumar was in a habit of chatting with girls using a fake profile and luring them. Further investigations are on to ascertain whether he had cheated any girls, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Abhishek Goel said.
