Abhishek’s phone number cloned, 2 held

Kolkata: Two persons, including a transgender, were arrested for allegedly cloning the phone number of Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

According to sources, on June 7, Arindam Sarkar, vice-chairman of Raiganj Municipality, reportedly received a call from Banerjee.

After receiving the call, a woman who introduced herself as Sofia gave reference of Banerjee and asked Sarkar to sort out a land-related matter. Hearing the matter, Sarkar doubted the intention of the caller and upon calling the office of the Trinamool Congress national general secretary, he came to know that there was no such direction given by him. This led to suspicion that the phone number might have been cloned.

On June 8, a complaint was lodged at the Shakespeare Sarani Police Station and an FIR was registered. During the probe, it was found that the call was made from Delhi. Immediately, a police team went to Delhi to nab the accused person. On Sunday, the police arrested the woman who introduced herself as Sofia. It is also alleged while arresting Sofia, no cooperation was extended by the Delhi Police.

Later, it was found that Sofia cloned Banerjee’s office mobile phone with help from an Information Technology employee Abhishek Chowdhury who was also arrested. Both of them were produced at the Bankshall Court and remanded to police custody till June 21.