Bihar's IPS officer falls prey to cyber fraud

New Delhi: Gone are the days when only common people were falling prey to cyber frauds as officials belonging to coveted services have become the hot target of cyber criminals.

In a latest incident, a senior IPS officer of Bihar cadre has become a victim of the cyber fraud network with a miscreant opening a fake Facebook account in his name to fleece innocent users.

The matter relates to Bhagalpur SSP Ashish Bharti, who is a 2011 batch IPS officer. Bharti came to know about the fake Facebook account in his name on October 24 when one of his Delhi-based friend brought the issue into his notice.

According to Bharti, his friend called him to know about him having two profiles on the social networking site and when he explained that he was having just one account, his friend sent him a link on WhatsApp of the second FB profile.

The Bhagalpur SSP acted swiftly and got the 'fake' account blocked with the help of cyber cell. "The search is still on to trace the miscreant who was running the fake account. The duplicate account was being run in my name using my family photograph and designation," Bharti told Millennium Post.

The IPS officer further said that the account might have been opened months back and cyber cell of Bhagalpur police has been tasked to find out the conman. In a recent post in his original Facebook account, the IPS officer has stated that one Surya Mani Singh was behind the fraud act.

Singh allegedly used Bharti's pictures with his wife Swapna Meshram, also a 2011 batch Bihar cadre IPS, and currently posted as SP in Special Branch. The fake FB profile of Bharti reportedly had several IAS, IPS and other government officials as his 'connections' for profile contacts.