Mumbai: Teenager arrested for harassing minor on Instagram

Fawad Danish Shaikh. Pic/Hanif Patel

The Vasai police have arrested a 19-year-old man for harassing a minor girl by uploading her photograph on a ‘paid sex service' profile on Instagram. The accused, Fawad Danish Shaikh, was arrested from Bhiwandi, said an officer privy to the investigation. A Std X girl had approached Vasai police station on January 24 after finding her photograph on an Instagram profile with objectionable content. On January 10, she had received an unusual message from an unknown Instagram handle error_8080.

The Instagram person had not disclosed his identity but kept asking for details about a selfie that the girl had taken with her friend in August 2022. "When the girl did not disclose anything to him, the accused abused her verbally and used foul language. The accused then started insisting that the girl share her personal mobile number, which she did not," said an officer.

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Shaikh told the girl that if she didn't share details, he would "make my fake paid account on Instagram to provide sex services", the girl told cops in her statement. "I got scared and stopped replying to him," the FIR reads. "After a few moments, I received a link on my Instagram account and the profile had my photos and below the photo was mentioned ‘sex service paid' and ‘sex services available at cheap rate'," reads the FIR.

Alarmed, the survivor narrated her ordeal to her mother and after mustering the courage, approached the police on January 24 to register a First Information Report (FIR) against an unknown person. The FIR was registered under sections 354-D (stalking), 506 (criminal intimidation), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and several other sections of stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.

After the FIR was registered, an inspector was handed the case to probe the matter. "Our team worked on the case and based on technical evidence, including IP address, we arrested the accused from Bhiwandi," said an officer attached to Vasai police station. The cops have learnt that Shaikh works for paid Instagram followers. "We suspect he might have been involved in harassing other women, too. Our investigations are underway," said another officer. The officer has advised netizens not to interact with strangers online, and immediately report to the local police station in case of unusual messages received on social media accounts.