Sexual harassment: Man held in Patiala

PATIALA: A man, who befooled the police with a fake suicide after he was booked for sexual harassment, was arrested by the police on Sunday. He will be produced in the court on Monday. The police claim that the accused has been identified as Parveen Kumar of Bahmna Patti, Samana village. Earlier, he was booked for allegedly sexually harassing a woman.

The police claimed that around two months back a married woman had lodged a complaint with the police alleging that accused, Parveen Kumar, 35, had been sending her obscene text messages on her mobile phone despite she told him to stop a number of times. The police claimed that the complaint against the accused was marked to the cyber cell and soon after a probe was initiated when a suicide note was found from the house of the accused.

The police said that the suicide note written by Parveen was found. However, his body was not there. The police claimed that family levelled allegations against the police.

"We were suspicious of the suicide as Parveen was already facing allegations of sexual harassment. But, later the family started pressurising the police by staging a protest in front of the police station and levelled allegations against the police for being responsible for the suicide that never took place. We searched for Parveen and traced him to Ludhiana. We have registered a case under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. He is also charged with section 67 of the IT Act," said investigation officer Gurdeep Singh Sidhu.