mumbai

Updated: Feb 08, 2018 09:45 IST

A 39-year-old engineer was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly creating a fake Twitter account of former cricketer Sachin Tendulkar’s daughter Sara and using it to tweet against NCP chief Sharad Pawar.

Nitin Atmaram Sisode, the accused, wanted to make money by generating traffic on an online platform and he decided to do that by targeting celebrities, said the police, while adding Sisode had created fake accounts of five more celebrities in past.

In the second week of October last year, a fake Twitter handle — @SaraSachin_rt — tweeted objectionable posts on Pawar and another politician. It sparked a controversy that led to the former cricketer clarifying that both his children are not on Twitter.

Later, Tendulkar’s personal assistant filed a police complaint. Although the IP address the police obtained was found to be of some other country, an email account led the cops to Sisode. The account was linked to the fake Twitter account.

After the police got the details of the Internet service he used, he was traced to Andheri and arrested. The cops have seized Sisode’s laptop and suspect that he may have used a software to jump the server from some other country to mislead them. Advocate Ajay Umapati Dubey, representing Sisode, said: “The case against my client is politically motivated. He is into business of buying and reselling of old computers. If he was using the laptop, which was used in commission of the said offence, unaware of the same, then he is not a criminal. His family believes he is innocent and we will soon move court for his bail.”

Sisode has been booked under sections 419 (cheating by personation) 420 (cheating), 500 (defamation) of the IPC and 66C (identity theft) and 66 D (cheating by personation) of the IT Act. He was sent to police custody till Feb 9.