Man Poses As Woman, Stalks Wives Of UP Government Officers On Facebook

A man posing as a woman on Facebook befriended wives of government officers in Lucknow and made objectionable calls to them, the police said on Tuesday.

A First Information Report (FIR) has been filed against the unidentified man whose Facebook profile name is Sakshi Patel. Two cases filed in Vibhuti Khand within a week have been referred to the cyber cell.

According to the complaint filed by the wife of an officer, she received and accepted Sakshi Patel's friend request on August 19.

The next day, Sakshi Patel greeted her with a "Hi" and she replied with a "good morning" message. Trouble started the same night, when the woman received a Facebook Messenger call from her new friend. To her dismay, she found Sakshi Patel was a man.

"He was in an inappropriate state and I quickly disconnected the call," said the complainant. The accused began posting objectionable messages on her Facebook profile.

He said he had taken a screenshot of the call, and would morph her pictures and share them online if she did not talk to him. He also made video calls in which he was seen naked, the complaint said.

The second complaint filed by another officer's wife reported a similar sequence of events.

Police officer Rajeev Dwiwedi said that in both cases, the accused was the same man whose social media name was Sakshi Patel.

"The FIR has been registered against the person for threatening and publishing material containing sexually explicit act in electronic form. The Cyber Cell of Lucknow police will now handle the matter," he said.