Mumbai: The Mumbai Police cyber cell Wednesday arrested a Hyderabad-based man for allegedly making online rape threats to Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli’s infant daughter after India lost a T20 Word Cup match to Pakistan.
The accused, Akubathini Ramanagesh, 23, will be brought to Mumbai where he will be produced before a local court for custody.
In a statement released to the media Wednesday, the Mumbai Police’s cyber cell said: “By publicly releasing an objectionable tweet about the ten-month old daughter of Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli and cinema artist Anushka Sharma he has committed an act that will bring shame to the mind of a woman and defamed her parents.”
The police have booked the accused under various sections of the Information Technology Act.
After the Indian cricket team lost the T20 match to Pakistan, a Twitter handle ‘Criccrazyygirl’, going by the name ‘Amena’, on 24 October issued a rape threat to the daughter of Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma, asking for her photos to be revealed.
While the Twitter handle was soon deleted, screenshots of the tweet went viral. Several users claimed that the Twitter handle was a Pakistani bot.
An FIR was registered at the west zone, cyber police cell, by Kohli’s manager on his behalf on 8 November.
The Shami row
The controversy was sparked at a time when social media trolls targeted Mohammed Shami, the only Muslim player in India’s playing-11 against Pakistan, with religion-based slurs. Kohli chose to strongly hit back at the trolls, slamming them as “spineless”.
“Attacking someone over their religion is the most, I would say, pathetic thing that a human being can do… Mohammed Shami has won India number of matches in the last few years and has been our primary bowler with Jasprit Bumrah when it comes to making an impact in games in Test cricket,” Kohli told reporters.
“If people can overlook that…I honestly don’t even want to waste one minute of my life to give any attention to those people and neither does Shami and neither does anyone else in the team,” he added.
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