The man arrested by Mumbai police on Wednesday for rape threats to the infant daughter of Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma, is a graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad and was preparing to pursue higher studies in the United States.
Ramnagesh Akubathini, son of an employee of Ordnance Factory Medak, was arrested from his house at the ordnance factory quarters at Yeddumailaram in Sangareddy district.
The 23-year-old software engineer was taken to Mumbai, where a case was booked against him after he tweeted a rape threat following India’s defeat to Pakistan at the ICC Twenty20 World Cup on October 24.
Ramnagesh’s father Srinivas Akubathini works as a fitter at the ordnance factory which manufactures armoured vehicles for the Indian army. He and his friend have gone to Mumbai to secure bail for his son.
A native of Rangareddy district near Hyderabad, Ramnagesh is reported to be known for online trolling using fake identities.
According to his relatives, he is a passionate follower of the Indian cricket team, and when they lost to Pakistan and New Zealand he was angry. They believe that he may have typed a message in anger and though he did not intend to tweet it, the mobile phone slipped out of his hand and the message got posted.
According to Ramnagesh’s family, he was working for a leading food delivery app in Bengaluru for an annual pay package of nearly Rs 24 lakh but quit the job a month ago to prepare for a master’s degree in the US.
They said he was known as a bright student since his school days. He was a class 10 topper and secured 2,367 in the IIT-JEE to get admission into IIT Hyderabad, from where he passed out two years ago.
The police investigation so far has revealed that he tweeted the rape threat using a fake account after Virat Kohli came out in support of teammate Mohammed Shami who was being trolled after India’s defeat to Pakistan on October 24.
Ramnagesh used Twitter handle @criccrazyygirl to post the rape threat and pretended to be a Pakistani user.
As the tweet screenshot went viral and was flagged to the police in Mumbai and Delhi, the accused deleted his Twitter handle @ramanheist.
However, fact-checking websites had already tracked down his Twitter handle and found that he was also using another handle, @pellikuturuhere. ‘Pellikuturu’ means ‘bride’ in Telugu and this indicated that the Twitter handle belonged to a Telugu-speaking person.
The Mumbai police reportedly booked him under Indian Penal Code sections 354(A) (sexual harassment), 506 (criminal intimidation), 500 (defamation), and under Information Technology Act sections 67, 67(B) (punishment for publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in the sexually explicit act, in electronic form).
IANS
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