New Delhi: A 34-year-old Afghan national has been accused of raping a US citizen after befriending her on Facebook and threatening her with an acid attack on being exposed, Delhi police has alleged in a court here.
The legal woes of accused Hameedullah Akbar, presently lodged in a jail here, are bound to compound as many women from other countries have now come out in the open alleging that they were also victimised by him.
The allegations were made in a charge sheet filed before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Sumit Dass, who took cognisance after finding that prima facie a case was made out against Akbar for various offences including rape, cheating, extortion, criminal intimidation and forgery of a valuable security.
If convicted, the accused faces maximum punishment of life imprisonment.
The charge sheet filed by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police also arrayed offences punishable under Foreigners' Act and Information Technology Act, Manoj Taneja, the counsel for the victim, said.
According to the charge sheet, Akbar allegedly befriended the 39-year-old American woman, who is in the business of compression clothing, over Facebook posing as MK Faheem, a banker based in Dubai.
After she learnt his truth, he threatened to carry out an acid attack on her, blackmailed her saying he would implicate her under charges of terrorism and also told her that he would upload her explicit pictures on the internet, it said.
It said that after the news of the registration of an FIR and his subsequent arrest broke in February this year, police received several emails from various women from different countries who alleged that they were also similarly victimised by the accused.
Most of the women claimed they were cheated and exploited by the accused after promising marriage. He blackmailed them by taking their indecent pictures through Skype and extorted money from them.
Akbar's visa had already expired in December 2013, the police also said, adding that during investigation, it was also found that at some places, the accused had represented himself as an Indian national born in New Delhi.
Giving details of his modus operandi, the report said that the accused had made Facebook profiles with different names. He approached female users for friendship on the social media site, won their confidence and entrapped them.
Initially, he would portray himself as a gentleman and spend money on the woman to gain her trust, would give her assurance of marriage and then become physically intimate with her, it said.
Thereafter, he would prepare a fake marriage document mentioning the woman as his wife and exploit her sexually.
The accused had clicked several indecent pictures of the US citizen and various other girls in his mobile phone and would extort money from them by blackmailing.
The cheated amount would be transferred to Afghanistan and them sent to him in India through alternative channels.
In the present case, the victim discovered his real identity and found that the accused has been mentioned as a scammer on a website 'who scammed you.Com', the police said, adding that when the US citizen confronted him, he threatened her that he would inform the FBI.
He threatened her that he would claim that the money transferred by her was paid for terror purpose in Kabul, the report said.
"He also said that he had clicked her indecent pictures and videos and that he would upload them on the net. The complainant was even threatened of an acid attack by the accused," it said.
Akbar was born in Kabul in January, 1981 and was brought up at Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, the report claimed.
"He holds an Afghan passport issued at Kabul. His family moved to UAE in 1997-98 due to hostile conditions in Afghanistan. He arrived in India in July 2011 on a tourist visa that was later converted to medical visa," it claimed, adding that he was living a luxurious life with the money he got from his victims.
