The Mumbai Police on Wednesday arrested a software engineer in Hyderabad for allegedly threatening to rape the nine-month-old daughter of the Indian men’s cricket team captain Virat Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma.
The suspect, identified as 23-year-old Ramnagesh Alibathini, used to work for a food delivery app, the police said. He is being taken to Mumbai from Hyderabad.
Twitter handle @criccrazygirl had on October 31 posted a tweet threatening to rape Kohli’s daughter. Several people claimed that the handle was a Pakistani bot account.
However, fact-checking website Alt News cited the account’s unique Twitter ID and its past activity to state that the account appeared to be from India.
The tweet had come after Kohli defended pacer Mohammed Shami, who was abused on social media following the team’s loss to Pakistan in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. Shami is the only Muslim player in India’s 15-member World Cup squad.
Kohli was also attacked online after his defence of his teammate.
On November 2, the Delhi Commission for Women took suo motu cognisance of reports of rape threats to Kohli’s daughter. It had asked the Delhi Police to file a first information report in the case.