Thane: Woman held for abusing Devendra Fadnavis' wife Amruta on Facebook

A Thane resident was arrested for allegedly abusing Amruta Fadnavis, wife of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Smruti Shekhar Panchal allegedly abused the Minister’s wife on Facebook last week.

Panchal reportedly used a fake Facebook account to post abusive messages in response to a post by Amruta Fadnavis. The complaint was filed by Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) youth wing functionary Pallavi Sapre. Smruti is a resident of Bhayanderpada, Thane,

On September 7, Sapre came across a post by Amruta Fadnavis that mentioned a function and contained some images.

In her post, a Facebook user named Ganesh Kapoor made some objectionable comments. The comments were ‘highly abusive, vulgar, and derogatory in nature,” said a cyber-cell officer.

Following the complaint, the state cyber cell sought details of the account holder and the IP address of the device from which the comments were posted. The probe led the cyber police to Smruti Shekhar Panchal.

Police arrested her from her residence on September 12. The woman has been booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000. The cops have also seized Panchal’s mobile phones for investigation.

“Panchal had similarly abused people using her original Facebook account, following which in November 2021 the authorities wrote to Facebook to “take down” her account as it was abusive. The account was taken down by Facebook. She then created another Facebook account in the name of Ganesh Kapoor. For this she had also created a similar-sounding fake email account,” the cyber-cell officer added.

As of now, the cyber cell has found as many as 53 fake social media accounts and 16 face email accounts from Panchal’s mobile phones. The initial probe revealed that the woman is abusing and harassing the minister’s wife for the last two years.

Further investigation is underway.