The Delhi Police on Saturday said they have identified six users of the viral audio chat room on Clubhouse, including a 17-year-old and two women.
All six have been questioned but no arrests have been made, the police said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell Cyber Unit) K.P.S. Malhotra said the six users have been identified as Anchal Anand (user name- koko0107), Naumaan Jabbar (username – versace_on_me), Harsh Pal (username – coochielove), Rahul Kapoor (Bismillah), and Roma Makkar (username – Roma).
‘Rule out tampering’
The police said those identified have not been arrested because the authenticity of the audio needed to be ascertained before proceeding with arrests. “We have to rule out any voice modulation, as the same may effect the trial of the case. The only evidence in the present case is the first source, who had video recorded the audio conversation. That is the only evidence of the vulgar remarks, as Clubhouse does not record the audio conversations in the chat rooms,” a senior police officer said, adding that before making any arrest in the case, the authenticity of the video and the voice matching of the alleged persons is to be ascertained.
Police said that Anchal is a resident of Kerala and has admitted to using the name Anchal on Clubhouse. During the chat room discussion other members had passed derogatory and vulgar comments regarding women, but “Anchal had only passed general remarks”, the officer said.
Naumaan, police said, is a resident of Jodhpur and had created an account on Clubhouse on July 25 last year by in the name of @mr_casanova and was using this account since but the one appearing on the viral audio is an account he created about two months ago, police said adding that on January 6, on the request of one of his clubhouse friend Akash Suyal – arrested by Mumbai Police with username ‘Kira xd’, he shared his second account with him.
Police said that Harsh is a resident of Dehradun and is a student of B.Com (Hons) at Uttaranchal University. An officer said that Harsh created his Clubhouse account ‘?? hrsh’ in June 2021 and deactivated it on Wednesday after this incident on Tuesday. “He stated that he participated in the alleged Clubhouse Room for about 10 minutes but did not pass any comments. His first name ‘??’ was reflecting in the alleged room and he was just listener. He further informed that Harsh whose name is mentioned/listening in the conversation (video) was another Harsh with account name was ‘Harsh’,” the officer said.
The minor who has been questioned is a Class 12 student. He was spoken to in front of his parents, the police said adding that he had admitted to being the moderator of the group.
The 18-year-old youth Rahul who has been brought to Delhi from Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow admitted to creating the chat group on the directions of ‘Sallos’, police said. After creating the group, he handed over the moderator key to ‘Sallos’ and said that he left the group when people started talking dirty,” a senior police officer said
Police said that the youth’s father works as an accountant in Army Public School (APS) in Lucknow Cantonment area.
It has been learnt that Rahul was a student of APS and has completed his higher secondary. Refusing to divulge any other details, APS Principal Neena Mathur said, “He was a very good student while he was in school”.
The case is being investigated by the Delhi Police Special Cell Intelligence, Infusion and Strategic Operations unit.
