KOLKATA: A joint team of Kolkata Police STF and the Hare Street police has nabbed a person for allegedly using a free-to-download app — that helped him to use another person’s number as his own — to threaten a judge of a court in Kolkata. The cops said that the accused had posed as an app-biker and demanded Rs 500 from the judge without realizing whom he was calling. The accused — Arnab Acharya — has been remanded to police custody till April 9 by a local court.
Police had tracked the call to the app-biker after the judge lodged a complaint. “The judge kept getting calls that he took an app-bike ride and that he owed the app-bike firm Rs 500.
Based on the complaint, police detained the app-biker but soon realized they had been tricked. “This app-biker himself had been promised Rs 1,200 by the accused for multi-location drops. But Acharya fled after taking the ride on the pretext of arranging some change. He then began using this biker’s number to extract money at multiple places,” explained an officer.
The STF was roped in and the accused was arrested from a top hotel in Salt Lake. “He used this app to call up even his family members and extort money from them,” said an officer.