A 38-year-old security guard, who allegedly posed as an IPS officer from Uttar Pradesh and harassed women by making phone calls and offering fake government jobs, has been arrested from a village in Gurugram on various charges including stalking and molestation, the Delhi police said on Sunday.
Gauri Shankar, a resident of Kushinagar district in Uttar Pradesh, was arrested from Mullaheri village, they said. He has also been booked for “having an intent to outrage the modesty of a woman”, the police also said.
Explaining the modus operandi, the police said that Shankar would introduce himself as an IPS officer when he made phone calls to women and lured them with fake government job offers. He would also send the women “obscene content and messages” on WhatsApp, they said.
The matter first came to light on November 25, after a woman from south Delhi’s Kotla Mubarakpur reported to the police that a man had been harassing her for a month by sending obscene messages and porn videos. The woman also alleged that the accused had been frequently calling and abusing her, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Atul Kumar Thakur.
When the police called on the phone number provided by the woman, the person on the other end introduced himself as an IPS officer, Mr. Thakur said.
The police later found that the man had procured the number on a fake ID or was using somebody else’s number as the real owner was traced to Anand district in Gujarat, the DCP also said.
Most of the targets of the accused were from Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and they said they were being harassed by the caller, the officer said.
After his arrest, Shankar told the police that he had the mobile phone numbers of several unknown people as he used to sell SIM cards in Kushinagar earlier.
He had to shut his shop after he had an accident about four years ago. He then started working in Delhi as a security guard and started making calls to women, posing as a senior police officer from Uttar Pradesh, the DCP said.
Shankar was previously involved in a 2010 case of rioting in Kushinagar.
The accused is married and has two children. The police said that they are trying to contact other women who might have been harassed by Shankar.
