Man 'fools' 50 female FB friends

Bangalore, Mar 18: The Central Crime Branch (CCB) of the City police has arrested a 50-year-old man who had “bluffed” at least 50 of his Facebook female friends into believing that he was a “young, dashing engineering student”.

Police also arrested three other men who are suspected to have beaten up and robbed the alleged imposter after he reportedly tried to bluff a girl personally known to them.

Shyam Kumar, a resident of Nagarabhavi and father of two, allegedly cheated 50 girls whom he had befriended on Facebook using a fake account.

Police said he would contact the girls, introducing himself as a “final-year engineering student”.

As the girls accepted his overtures of friendship, he would allegedly get their mobile phone numbers and try to have a secret rendezvous with them at a mall or near a temple. Shyam Kumar 's apparent luck ran out when he contacted one of his Facebook friends two months ago and managed to get her mobile phone number. One day, he asked her to meet him at a mall or near some temple.

The girl, however, sensed something fishy and brought the matter to the knowledge of her parents, police added.

Her parents then asked seven of their family friends to investigate the matter and call Kumar 's bluff, if any. The seven men — Kumar, 27, a resident of Hanumanthanagar, Kishore, 21, from Brindavan Nagar, Punith, 27, from Banashankari 3rd Stage, Santosh, Praveen, Nikhil and Hemanth — managed to discover the true identity of Shyam Kumar. They then thought of a way to trap him.

Accordingly, they asked the girl to contact Shyam Kumar on Facebook and request him to meet her near the Subramanya Swamy temple in Hanumanthanagar on March 11. An earnest Shyam Kumar readily accepted her offer. As he reached the place by car, the seven men waylaid him, claiming that they were CCB sleuths.

They attacked him and forced him to withdraw Rs 65,000 at ATMs using different cards. They also snatched his mobile phone and the Rs 5,000 he had in his wallet. The suspects then took his wife 's phone number and threatened him with dire consequences if he disclosed the matter to anyone. Later,

they called his wife from his mobile phone and told her of his “strange” hobby, the police explained. Although he was exposed, Shyam Kumar went to make a complaint to the police against the seven men. Consequently, police swung into action and arrested three of them — Kumar, Kishore and Punith.

The rest are at large, said police who are also interrogating Shyam Kumar to get to the bottom of the incident.