NEW DELHI--Mohammed Khalid, the 31-year-old man, who was arrested on Wednesday for tormenting around 1,500 women with vulgar messages and calls, is believed to have been driven by the sadistic pleasure he derived when the victims begged him to stop harassing them.
“His only aim was to harass his victims and see them helpless," Vijay Singh, DCP (North-West) told The Hindu.
Apparently, Khalid was so annoyed because a girl turned down his proposal in August last yeat, he turned into a nightmare for hundreds of women.
During interrogation, Khalid told the police that said he used to call up a random number.
"If the call was received by a woman or a girl, he used to save it and then through WhatsApp viewed their profile picture. If he liked the picture of the woman, he would start sending vulgar messages and obscene video clips through WhatsApp," said the officer.
Police got to know about the harassment after one victim lodged a complaint in Ashok Vihar police station on May 30.
The complainant said she had been receiving obscene and abusive messages on her mobile phone from two unknown numbers.
When the police tried to track down the accused, they found out that the SIM card had been procured with fake documents. When one of the investigating officers called the number, the accused reportedly threatened him.
“He challenged us to catch him,” a police officer told Indian Express.
Nightmare Khalid
It would just start by sending a ‘good morning’ or ‘hi/hello’ message to his unsuspecting victims. Some of them would also respond politely. Soon, the 'good morning and good night’ texts would be replaced by scores of messages, pornographic videos and abusive calls.
If any of the victim’s relatives called to warn him, he would lie to them and say he was the woman’s former lover, often creating serious trust issues in their families, reports The Hindu.
Driven by desperation, many victims would plead with him to stop.
“He enjoyed seeing his victims fear for their reputation. He harassed these women as retaliation for his failed proposal. He wanted revenge,” said the DCP.
That's not all. If anyone tried to take on Khalid, he would threaten to put up their photographs and phone numbers on social media to portray them as sex workers.
How Khalid Was Caught
A team comprising Inspectors Virender Kadyan and R K Maan, Sub-Inspectors Sanjeev Arora, S Sandeep Kumar, Parveen Sharma and Naveen Kumar, and Constable Vinay Kumar was put together under the supervision of Assistant Commissioner of Police Vikas Kumar to investigate the case.
Searching for a clue, the police team reached Sadar Bazar area from where the SIM cards were purchased and he often got his phone recharged.
“We questioned people within a 200-metre radius and got to know that he works in a bag shop in Sadar Bazaar. There were six bag shops and policemen in plainclothes visited each shop. While they were in the shop, other police officials called on the number of the accused. When they were visiting Khalid’s shop, his phone started ringing,” a police officer told IE.
Two months after the first complaint, the police team arrested accused Mohammad Khalid from his fathers bag shop in Sadar Bazar area, said Vijay Singh, DCP (north west) on Wednesday.
Police found all the obscene messages and video clips sent by the accused to his victims, stored in the mobile phones. Examining the mobile phones used by the accused, police stumbled upon contacts of more than 1,500 women and girls who were put through "perpetual trauma" and "mental agony" by him.
Altogether, the accused had phone numbers of 2,000 women and girls living in the Delhi national capital region (NCR), they said.
Most of his victims avoided approaching police perhaps due to his threat to malign their image and out of fear of disclosing their identity, the DCP said.
Cases were registered against him in Gurgaon (Haryana) and Uttam Nagar, Ashok Vihar and Usmanpur (all in Delhi). Complaints were also found lodged at women helpline numbers at different police stations in and around Delhi, the police added.