Businessman, associate arrested for sending lewd SMSs to politicians

NEW DELHI - Delhi Police’s Special Cell has arrested a 27-year-old businessman and his aide for sending threatening and lewd text messages to several politicians, including Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor.

Narender Khosla, a manpower supplier, and his employee Rohit Kumar were arrested by police Friday. They were using SIM cards procured in the name of a gym instructor, Manik Verma.

“The two sent threatening messages and lewd SMSes to politicians in order to settle scores with Verma, with whom Khosla had a personal rivalry,” said a senior police officer.

Khosla was arrested Friday and three mobile phones and fake IDs were recovered from him.

“On interrogation, Khosla revealed that he had a long affair with a girl whom he wanted to marry but couldn’t as his family was against it. He married another woman. But his former girlfriend started an affair with Manik Verma,” the officer added.

“When Khosla came to know about this, he became very jealous and decided to frame Manik. He gathered Manik’s personal details from different sources, including the Internet, prepared a fake driving license with the help of one of his employees Rohit Kumar and procured a SIM card. He used this card to make an extortion call to a Faridabad-based jeweller and asked him to pay Rs.5 lakh,” the officer said.

“He got another SIM card with Manik’s fake identity proof and used it to send threatening and lewd SMSes to several prominent politicians and MPs,” the officer added.

Nearly 100 text messages were sent to politicians, including Shashi Tharoor, Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Brinda Karat and Congress leaders Rashid Alvi and Sandeep Dikshit in the last fortnight.

According to the rules, mobile phone connections can be sold only after getting the address proof and a photograph of the customer.